Mounted on a bridge across the river Rubicon, the bust of Julius Caesar eyes the Adriatic sea. Caesar’s nose is shiny, perhaps (but his is speculative, based on limited observations) because passersby feel tempted to touch it with their index finger. A high resolution version is available here (CC-BY). Photo taken by Eric-Jan Wagenmakers, August 4, 2024. In 49 BC,…

The picture of the Texas sharpshooter  is available in our artwork library (CC-BY). Artwork by Dirk-Jan Hoek, concept by Eric-Jan Wagenmakers. In a 2018 blog post I mentioned that it is unclear who first came up with analogy of the Texas sharpshooter: The infamous Texas sharpshooter fires randomly at a barn door and then paints the targets around the bullet…

The hit series “Clarkson’s Farm” has Jeremy Clarkson attempt farming, in a highly amusing mix between Mr. Bean, John Cleese in Clockwise, and Pat & Mat. After binge-watching the first three seasons, I was struck by one particular topic: the mass death of the piglets. Clarkson houses his sows in “pigloos” — dome-shaped pig farrowing pens. The first time the…

TLDR; the video is here. This week the Psychological Methods Lab received an 800,000 euro Ammodo Science Award for groundbreaking research. This award was for our entire Psychological Methods group and allows us to develop our joint Open Science research agenda. The logistics was handled expertly by the Ammodo team, from start to finish. Part of the procedure was a…

This week I came across an inspired/inspiring article by Jim Berger, “Learning statistics from counterexamples“. This short paper strikes at the very heart of statistics; it seems to me that every statistician (whether young or old, frequentist or Bayesian) ought to have an opinion on the counterexamples — sitting on the fence is not an option. Below I give the…

“Data analysis is like an iceberg, it floats with one-seventh of its mass above water” Adjusted from a quotation incorrectly attributed to Sigmund Freud Preprint: https://osf.io/preprints/psyarxiv/edzfj Abstract “The vast majority of empirical research articles feature a single primary analysis outcome that is the result of a single analysis plan, executed by a single analysis team. However, recent multi-analyst projects have…

WARNING: This post is about chess. If you don’t play chess you might want to skip this post.  During a week-long family vacation I engaged obsessively in both the highest and the lowest form of human intellectual activity. Obviously the highest form is chess endgame study composition; the lowest form surely is online “bullet” chess. Miraculously, my bullet chess adventures…