Reply #68: excellent post [View All]

[OnTheOtherHand]

I have two stray thoughts that may not actually be distractions. One is that I don't think "statistical and numerical certainty" is really Febble's bailiwick. Statistics is about degrees of probability and confidence, not certainty. This isn't just a technical quibble about "p values"; quite apart from quantifiable probabilities, there is the task of assessing the assumptions that allow us to calculate these probabilities. A healthy respect for uncertainty could be world-saving, if we let it be. (Not that one needs statistics for that!)

Second, I think we all generally converge on preventing "this" (as you put it, "the same 'coincidence'") from happening again, even when we don't entirely agree on what "this" was. The fact that we can't agree on what "this" was is, in part, evidence of how messed up the election system is. Of course, our assessment of what happened in 2004 does influence our priorities for the future. In some respects it may be immaterial whether Bush stole ten million votes via some sort of vote tampering; in others, probably not.