In the darkness the trees are full of starlight (henwy) wrote,
In the darkness the trees are full of starlight
henwy
  • Mood: blah

I <3 statistics

Slate.com has a feature called 'Do the Math' which basically consists of a mathematician tackling an issue of the day by crunching the numbers. The most recent article consists of the liklihood of the democrats managing to retake the house of representatives in the election this year and I found it pretty enlightening. It's funny but none of the ideas he strung together were unfamiliar to me by any stretch, but it's just not something we tend apply in our daily lives to issues like this. We just sort of read what the pundits believe, glance at a few polls, and then more or less 'guess' at the outcome based on bias, hope, and sometimes a bit of chance.

Will the Democrats Flip the House?
Slate's mathematician on the odds of a Democratic victory.

By Jordan Ellenberg

Take a look at the analysis. It's pretty interesting. If you just want his nitty gritty on it though:

"If you're a Democrat, you've got every right to be hopeful this fall. But if somebody gives you the chance to bet on the GOP, get your wallet out."

Basically he plots the chance of it happening as being between 15-50%.
Tags: politics
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