Statistics took a beating in last year’s post-election existential crisis. Part of the problem was, of course, that probability is just that. Too many fail to understand that a 71.4% probability does not mean certainty, even if it comes from Nate Silver. Unfortunately, many of the polls concerning the U.S. November 2016 election and the earlier U.K. Brexit vote relied on questionable methods in making their forecasts.

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