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november 18, 2004
John Allen Paulos om amerikanska valet
John Paulos Allen om amerikanska valet i EducationGuardian: X = not a whole lot:
Excuse my mathematician's obsession with coin flips, but consider this. There is a large bloc of people who will vote for the Republican candidate no matter what, and a similarly reliable Democratic bloc of roughly the same size. There is also a smaller group of voters who either do not have fixed opinions or are otherwise open to changing their vote.
To an extent, these latter people's votes (and thus elections themselves) are determined by chance (external events, campaign gaffes, etc).
So what conclusion would we draw about a coin that landed heads two or three times out of four flips (or about a sequence of two or three Democratic victories in the last four elections)? The answer, of course, is that we would draw no conclusions at all.
One reason we tend to draw far-reaching conclusions about elections is the charming superstition that significant events must be the consequence of significant events.
Efter lite mer diskussioner avslutas artikeln med:
In any case, my meta-conclusion is that there are no very compelling conclusions to be drawn about the electorate. Bush received more votes than Kerry. Period. I don't think this simple fact means the country supports the Bush agenda.
Posted by hakank at november 18, 2004 07:47 EM Posted to Spelteori och ekonomi
Comments
Reason hade en intressant artikel häromdagen på samma tema som drog i stort sett samma slutsats.
Posted by: Dennis at november 18, 2004 10:44 EM
Tack för länken, Dennis.
Posted by: Håkan Kjellerstrand at november 18, 2004 11:30 EM