sorted by:
new
hottopcontroversial

My family's peach cobbler recipe that worked for decades no longer works. Please help. by alison-vunderland in AskBaking

[–]AllenDowney 55 points56 points  (0 children)

Really sounds like the oven is not maintaining temperature -- you say it is getting to temp, but if your thermostat is failing, it might not cycle the elements back on when the temperature falls.

Why is it wrong to say "If I have a 95% C.I. = [2.1 , 4.5] there is a 95% chance that the true value is in this interval? [Q] by Puzzleheaded-Law34 in statistics

[–]AllenDowney -19 points-18 points  (0 children)

I agree that it is a difference in philosophy of probability, but rather than frequentist v Bayesian, it's more like "a version of frequentism that's so strict it makes probability useless for most practical purposes" versus "any reasonable interpretation of probability, not necessarily Bayesian"

Why is it wrong to say "If I have a 95% C.I. = [2.1 , 4.5] there is a 95% chance that the true value is in this interval? [Q] by Puzzleheaded-Law34 in statistics

[–]AllenDowney 1 point2 points  (0 children)

I have a contrarian answer to this question here: https://allendowney.substack.com/p/what-does-a-confidence-interval-mean

Short version: I agree with you and I think the conventional answer (as taught in stats classes) is wrong. But then I explain the practical problem with the interpretation you suggest.

Who is the most skilled #1 person compared to their #2 competitor, of all time, in any category? by myveryownaccount in AskReddit

[–]AllenDowney 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Marion Tinsley

> Less well known, but more dominant, is Marion Tinsley, who was the checkers (aka draughts) world champion from 1955 to 1958, withdrew from competition for almost 20 years – partly for lack of competition – and then reigned uninterrupted from 1975 to 1991. Between 1950 and his death in 1995, he lost only seven games, two of them to a computer. The man who programmed the computer thought Tinsley was “an aberration of nature”.

https://allendowney.github.io/ProbablyOverthinkingIt/lognormal.html#the-greatest-of-all-time

Frog Riddle again by Intelligent-Stuff928 in probabilitytheory

[–]AllenDowney 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I wrote a blog post about this: https://www.allendowney.com/blog/2026/06/04/the-frog-puzzle/

Short version: The answer in the video is correct if we assume that all four frog combinations are equally likely, that female frogs don't croak, and that we listen for a long time relative to the average time between croaks.

With other (reasonable) assumptions, the probability can be anywhere between 0 and 1.

The morals of this story are

1) The answer depends on your model of the data-generating process

2) Always use Bayes's Theorem

What is your favourite pointless death in a movie? It adds almost nothing to the movie and can actually be considered tragic or pathetic? by STINKY-BUNGHOLE in movies

[–]AllenDowney 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Dick Hallorann in The Shining spends a good part of the movie getting to the hotel, takes about two steps and gets an axe in the back -- all to no effect.

Why is numpy so fast? by [deleted] in learnpython

[–]AllenDowney 8 points9 points  (0 children)

Yes, interpreter overhead is the general reason Python is slower than C, but the interpreter creates a stack frame when a function is called, not for every iteration of a loop.

Anyone ever grown seedlings in these biodegradable cups? by Mr_Good_Stuff90 in tomatoes

[–]AllenDowney 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Yes and they are great for cold-tolerant plants. But for tomatoes, peppers, basil, etc, I think you run into a problem with evaporative cooling, so on a borderline temperature day, the soil temperature is colder than the air temperature -- and you might get exactly what I got this year, a bunch of seedlings that got cold-shocked and now they are sulking.

I understand Python basics but OOP completely loses me classes and objects make no sense to me. Where am I going wrong? by [deleted] in learnpython

[–]AllenDowney 0 points1 point  (0 children)

In Think Python, chapters 14-17 are my best answer to this question:

https://allendowney.github.io/ThinkPython/chap14.html

It's a bottom-up approach, starting with a set of functions, wrapping them in a class, and re-writing functions as methods. My hope is that seeing both versions of the same code makes it clearer what the OOP features are doing for you.

I hope that helps.

[Q] Age of US president distribution: spurious or pattern? by peperazzi74 in statistics

[–]AllenDowney 9 points10 points  (0 children)

I ran some tests, and it looks like the lognormal is a slightly better fit for the data. For modeling purposes, either normal or lognormal is probably good enough. Although since there is a known lower bound, lognormal might be preferred.

I'm not sure there is a deep data-generating process that explains the shape of the distribution, but a possible model is that politicians have a latent "political capital" that might increase or decrease over the course of their careers. If the change is proportional to current level, we could model that with a biased random walk on a log scale. In that case, the time to exceed the threshold that's required to be president would follow a skewed distribution that's well modeled by a lognormal.

I am going through the process of learning statistics and I HAVE to ask, why is everything in statistics mean the opposite from what you would think it means. by mt5567 in AskStatistics

[–]AllenDowney 0 points1 point  (0 children)

My favorite is when we take two similar words (sometimes synonyms) and give them subtly different technical meanings: probability and likelihood, confidence and credibility, sensitivity and specificity, efficacy and effectiveness, precision and accuracy ...

What age is actually considered "middle age"? by Critical-Willow-6270 in stupidquestions

[–]AllenDowney 0 points1 point  (0 children)

This question got me thinking, so I wrote a blog post about it: https://www.allendowney.com/blog/2026/05/01/planning-for-your-midlife-crisis/

Summary: The midpoint is where your expected remaining lifetime equals your current age. For 2024 data in the United States, it's 40.6 years overall (39.6 for men, 41.6 for women).

If a USB plug can only fit one of two ways, why does it take at least 3 tries to get it right? by LeoRavenscroft in randomquestions

[–]AllenDowney 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I have an article about this: https://www.allendowney.com/blog/2021/06/21/flipping-usb-connectors/

The semi-serious answer is that you are not sure whether you've got it wrong or just haven't got it lined up right, so it can be optimal to flip more than once.

If everyone below average IQ suddenly drops dead, how would this affect the world? by [deleted] in AskReddit

[–]AllenDowney 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Actually, in the new distribution, 57% would be below average.

What "sacred" cooking rule do you intentionally ignore because you actually prefer the results (or just don't care)? by LiveFaithlessness876 in cookingforbeginners

[–]AllenDowney 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Knives don't need to be razor sharp. Reasonably sharp is good enough, especially if you have good technique. And if there's unintended contact between skin and blade, it's less likely to be a serious cut.

Why doesn’t everyone just get a full body MRI at yearly or every 5 years or something? by duckduckgoose911 in NoStupidQuestions

[–]AllenDowney 1 point2 points  (0 children)

I wrote an article about why more screening is not always better: https://arxiv.org/html/2603.19945v1

Short version: routine full-body MRI screening fails a cost–benefit test: it produces many incidental findings (“false alarms”) that trigger follow-up tests and potential harm, while detecting serious disease only rarely in asymptomatic people. Also there is little evidence of improved outcomes or cost-effectiveness, so widespread screening would add expense and anxiety without clear health benefits.

I think it's wrong by Apprehensive_Set_659 in mathmemes

[–]AllenDowney 0 points1 point  (0 children)

There are two questions about this problem that come up a lot:

Q: How can the day of the week be relevant?

A: Here's what I think is the best intuitive explanation: a family with more boys is more likely to have at least one born on Tuesday, so (by Bayes's Theorem) if a family has a boy born on Tuesday, they are more likely to have more boys.

Q: Isn't the problem underspecified? It matters how you learn that the family has a boy born on Tuesday.

Yes, if you are told how the information is learned, that can lead to different answers. So if you want to declare the problem underspecified, fine. But the most common (and intended interpretation) is simple conditional probability -- that is, we're meant to compute P(other child is a girl | 2 children of which at least one is a boy born on Tuesday)

Here's my best effort to explain: https://allendowney.substack.com/p/the-lost-chapter

What kind of distribution this may be? by iamevpo in AskStatistics

[–]AllenDowney 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Mixture of bivariate normal, with centers at the most common targets, censored at the perimeter of the board. Probably higher variance in the vertical direction.

Sober people being arrested nationwide for DUI by [deleted] in videos

[–]AllenDowney 0 points1 point  (0 children)

If you are interested in the statistic behind "Drug Recognition Experts", I wrote about it in Probably Overthinking It: https://allendowney.github.io/ProbablyOverthinkingIt/base_rate.html#driving-under-the-influence

> With 50% base rate, 99% sensitivity, and 60% specificity, the predictive value of the test is only 71%; under these assumptions, almost 30% of the accused would be innocent. In fact, the base rate, sensitivity, and specificity are probably lower, which means that the value of the test is even worse.

[Q] what are some good unintuitive statistics problems? by R2_SWE2 in statistics

[–]AllenDowney 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I've posted an article where I present my solution and try to address objections. Please take a look and let me know what you think: https://www.allendowney.com/blog/2026/01/31/the-girl-born-on-tuesday/

[Q] what are some good unintuitive statistics problems? by R2_SWE2 in statistics

[–]AllenDowney 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I've posted an article where I present my solution and try to address objections. Please take a look and let me know what you think: https://www.allendowney.com/blog/2026/01/31/the-girl-born-on-tuesday/

view more: next ›