A couple of things recently make me think we need a new branch of state - or an addition to the judiciary.

First, Burnham et al's estimation of deaths in Iraq in the Lancet - Nature has an article (which I don't think I can link to) that says:

None of the experts contacted by Nature said that their doubts fatally undermined the study. Some, such as Daponte, would have liked the authors to have better assessed their method's shortcomings before releasing a result with such political impact. But most say the result is a welcome addition to conflict epidemiology, which is now seen as playing a central role in assessing the severity of wars, and in helping states recover from them.

Heads... Heads... Heads...

Bet?

Heads I win.

... Heads.

A weaker man might be moved to re-examine his faith, for nothing else at least in the law of probability. One: probability is a factor which operates within natural forces. Two: probability is not operating as a factor. Three: we are now held within, um... sub or supernatural forces. Discuss!

I first came across the Monty Hall problem in Fermat's Last Theorem. Its goes like this:

Suppose you're on a game show, and you're given the choice of three doors: Behind one door is a car; behind the others, goats. You pick a door, say No. 1, and the host, who knows what's behind the other doors, opens another door, say No. 3, which has a goat. He then says to you, 'Do you want to pick door No. 2?' Is it to your advantage to take the switch?

A reader asked Marilyn Vos Savant's Sunday Parade column this question in 1991, and Marilyn - a woman with an apparently super-human IQ - answered yes: it's better to switch. If you switch, you have a two thirds chance of getting the car. Most people - including me originally - think it's 50-50, and therefore it doesn't matter if you switch or not. We're wrong.