It's Always Bellwether
July 23rd 2008 02:56
Things are irrefutable up to the point that they're no longer true.
Not the most profound statement in the world, but one that will remain correct until it's not. I'm quite confident in it, though I'm not planning to have it engraved on my tombstone, mostly because I have no reason to suspect that I will die. It's all about playing with statistics.
The reason I will not die is simple: there are, at time of writing, more people alive than have ever lived in history. If you therefore conducted a survey of everyone that has ever lived and everyone that is currently living, you would find that most people have not died. As one of the living, a survey of my entire life would show that I have consistently not died at any point. If I was good at drawing graphs, I could easily make one that would incorporate this evidence and prove that I am immortal.
Statistics aren't just about fooling people into thinking things, though that is their primary function. They're also essential for making predictions about the world, so we can live our lives accordingly.
I'll give you a good example, though it's one that's a lot less grand than my immortal one. I hadn't caught the train in years, a fact that ceased being true when my car died a horrible and expensive death. I had to travel from Frankston to the city, and found myself on the same train as my friend Georgina. When the train broke down at Moorabbin Station, we decided to go and get a coffee and wait it out a bit.
This would not have been notable if not for the fact that about a week later, I caught the train from Frankston to the city, and again -- completely by accident -- took the trip with Georgina. We exchanged a look of mild shock when the train was, once again, unexpectedly delayed at Moorabbin Station. Most people would put this down to coincidence, but if I had to draw any evidence from this at all, it's that every time I catch the train, I will do so with Georgina and we will break down at Moorabbin.
Invariably, the moment you begin to notice these patterns, they stop being true. It's elections that have made this fact apparent to me. In the lead up to an election, the press will invariably try to announce the outcome as early as possible. The only way they can do this is with their precious bellwethers.
For those unfamiliar with the term, a bellwether (or bellewether) refers to the age-old technique of placing a bell around a castrated ram so that it may lead its flock of sheep. The adapted term, layered with more irony that I suspect was first intended, now tends to refer to elements that influence or presage a future event. For instance, the Australian Federal seat of Eden-Monaro has (at time of writing) predicted every election since 1972. That is, the party that Eden-Monaro votes for is the one that tends to win the election. Most countries have them, and they're always the source of much press focus.
The problem is that whenever the press announces a bellwether we haven't heard of, that's the year they get it wrong. I remember a story back in 2004 about a bar in France where expatriate American citizens would have a small vote on who would win the election. They'd apparently been correct in every single election for decades upon decades, yet it was on the year that a US network decided to cover them that they picked John Kerry as the winner. Spoiler alert: he wasn't.
Things are irrefutable up to the point that they're no longer true. Remember that the next time you're listening to the press announce an entire election based on the voting habits of 0.02% of the population. Now if you'll excuse me, I have a train to catch, so I'll probably tell Georgina about all this.
Not the most profound statement in the world, but one that will remain correct until it's not. I'm quite confident in it, though I'm not planning to have it engraved on my tombstone, mostly because I have no reason to suspect that I will die. It's all about playing with statistics.
The reason I will not die is simple: there are, at time of writing, more people alive than have ever lived in history. If you therefore conducted a survey of everyone that has ever lived and everyone that is currently living, you would find that most people have not died. As one of the living, a survey of my entire life would show that I have consistently not died at any point. If I was good at drawing graphs, I could easily make one that would incorporate this evidence and prove that I am immortal.
Statistics aren't just about fooling people into thinking things, though that is their primary function. They're also essential for making predictions about the world, so we can live our lives accordingly.
I'll give you a good example, though it's one that's a lot less grand than my immortal one. I hadn't caught the train in years, a fact that ceased being true when my car died a horrible and expensive death. I had to travel from Frankston to the city, and found myself on the same train as my friend Georgina. When the train broke down at Moorabbin Station, we decided to go and get a coffee and wait it out a bit.
This would not have been notable if not for the fact that about a week later, I caught the train from Frankston to the city, and again -- completely by accident -- took the trip with Georgina. We exchanged a look of mild shock when the train was, once again, unexpectedly delayed at Moorabbin Station. Most people would put this down to coincidence, but if I had to draw any evidence from this at all, it's that every time I catch the train, I will do so with Georgina and we will break down at Moorabbin.
Invariably, the moment you begin to notice these patterns, they stop being true. It's elections that have made this fact apparent to me. In the lead up to an election, the press will invariably try to announce the outcome as early as possible. The only way they can do this is with their precious bellwethers.
For those unfamiliar with the term, a bellwether (or bellewether) refers to the age-old technique of placing a bell around a castrated ram so that it may lead its flock of sheep. The adapted term, layered with more irony that I suspect was first intended, now tends to refer to elements that influence or presage a future event. For instance, the Australian Federal seat of Eden-Monaro has (at time of writing) predicted every election since 1972. That is, the party that Eden-Monaro votes for is the one that tends to win the election. Most countries have them, and they're always the source of much press focus.
The problem is that whenever the press announces a bellwether we haven't heard of, that's the year they get it wrong. I remember a story back in 2004 about a bar in France where expatriate American citizens would have a small vote on who would win the election. They'd apparently been correct in every single election for decades upon decades, yet it was on the year that a US network decided to cover them that they picked John Kerry as the winner. Spoiler alert: he wasn't.
Things are irrefutable up to the point that they're no longer true. Remember that the next time you're listening to the press announce an entire election based on the voting habits of 0.02% of the population. Now if you'll excuse me, I have a train to catch, so I'll probably tell Georgina about all this.
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