The Data That Threatened to Break Physics
This quote is so very true, and it drives me nuts:<p>&gt; “Society likes black and white,” he answers. But answers in science are not always so cleanly resolved. “We have to be careful because if we give the impression that science never says yes or no, says always maybe, then people say, ‘Well, then I should not trust science.’ It is very delicate how to give this message.”<p>It reminded me of some of the polls before the 2016 US Presidential Election. Nate Silver at the time gave Trump about a 30% chance of winning, and when Trump won, there were lots of &quot;Even Nate Silver got it wrong!&quot; comments. Most people really don&#x27;t understand the difference between anything less than 50&#x2F;50 and 0, and it becomes a real challenge to explain things when reality works in probabilities at a fundamental level.