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Overcoming Bias Commenter's avatar

In a crowd of 100 where 2 are going to arbitrarily win/lose/have an accident/die/...; the probability of 2% applies to the group. For any given individual the probability of the 'event' is either zero or one. Probabilistic stats are derived from and pertain to the group, not the individuals therein.

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Overcoming Bias Commenter's avatar

David,

The probabilities are intended to represent forecast uncertainty. For the 2008 paper I used the forecast simulations of Nate Silver which were based on variation in polls. Another version of forecast uncertainty is here:http://www.stat.columbia.ed...And another version (for the 1992 election) is here:http://www.stat.columbia.ed...

Details change with the forecasting model but the general conclusions, and the order of magnitudes of the probability calculations, don't change.

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