Month: December 2018
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Adolescent mental health
Further to yesterday’s post, the Guardian reports that Gus O’Donnell (Britain’s most senior civil servant under Tony Blair, Gordon Brown and David Cameron) has spoken out about the declining mental health of teenagers in the UK. Figures published recently by the NHS show that 20% of girls aged 17-19 and 10% of boys the same…
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More or Less?
This post (and the next couple) take their inspiration from a favourite programme on Radio 4, “More or Less“, in which statisticians explore the numerical data behind headlines in the news or oft-repeated pieces of popular wisdom. In my brief exploration of Twitterspace, I found that debate raged hotly about some important statistics. One of…
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The Problem of Induction
I’m a scientist by profession. A characteristic of physical law is that it claims universal validity – to be able to describe phenomena at all times and in all places. This is particularly important in cosmology – because theories of the origin of the universe must look backwards in time – although the claim is…
Mrs Benn 