Category Archives: Probability

Theatre of the absurd (Arizona State edition)

Posted on February 17, 2015 by F. E. Guerra-Pujol

Check out Justin Wolfers’s most recent essay “How Arizona State Reinvented Free-Throw Distraction.” Here is an excerpt (edited by us for clarity):

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Statistically significant others

Posted on February 14, 2015 by F. E. Guerra-Pujol

Happy Valentine's Day, from XKCD. pic.twitter.com/c7KolpvP7j — Daniel W. Drezner (@dandrezner) February 14, 2015

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Fair or foul? (Marijuana law enforcement edition)

Posted on February 13, 2015 by F. E. Guerra-Pujol

Via Vox, more evidence that the “war on drugs” is a racist war.

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“Are we going down?”

Posted on February 11, 2015 by F. E. Guerra-Pujol

Statistically speaking, probably not! Read more about this probabilistic app here.

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Monday morning quarterbacks and the limits of game theory

Posted on February 7, 2015 by F. E. Guerra-Pujol

Our colleague Justin Wolfers has written an excellent essay defending the indefensible–Coach Carroll’s controversial play call on 2nd down with 26 seconds remaining in the 4th quarter of Super Bowl XLIX, the disastrous (in hindsight) play call that led to his team’s gut-wrenching … Continue reading →

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Distribution of birthdays

Posted on February 6, 2015 by F. E. Guerra-Pujol

In other words, some birthdays are more probable than others!

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Off the chart …

Posted on January 26, 2015 by F. E. Guerra-Pujol

Check out Warren Sharp’s statistical analysis of fumbles by NFL teams for all regular season games since the 2010 season. Here is an excerpt from Sharp’s data-detective post: “… the Patriots, visually, are off the chart. There is no other team even … Continue reading →

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Is Riggs v. Palmer a “hard case”?

Posted on January 13, 2015 by F. E. Guerra-Pujol

For many legal scholars, the paradigm or textbook example of a “hard case” in law is Riggs v. Palmer, the infamous “murdering heir” case decided in 1889 by the New York Court of Appeals. The facts of this legendary case would make tabloid and … Continue reading →

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Judge Hercules or Judge Bayes?

Posted on January 9, 2015 by F. E. Guerra-Pujol

Here is the abstract of one of our thought experiments, which we have been working on over the holidays: This paper explores two possible connections between hard cases in law and Newcomb’s Paradox in philosophy. One is that Newcomb’s Problem is … Continue reading →

Posted in Law, Philosophy, Probability | Tagged , , | 1 Comment

Should you take this bet?

Posted on January 2, 2015 by F. E. Guerra-Pujol

Imagine you and 99 other people are randomly assigned a number between 1 and 100. Imagine too that there is a room containing 100 boxes, that each box has also been randomly assigned a number between 1 and 100, and that … Continue reading →

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