Not surprisingly, people interpreted the recent statistical tie in the Florida election in a variety of ways.
Ties seem to bring out our differing mind-sets and preconceptions.
I had a visceral illustration of this when Florida Supreme Court Chief Justice Charles T. Wells quoted me in his dissent from last month's court decision to allow a recount to continue. It also accorded with the demand for a manual recount. Rather, it investigates the more general question of how people can look at nebulous, inconclusive data and draw very different conclusions from it. The victim is informed that while he is out of the room one of the other partygoers will relate a recent dream to the group. The punch line is that no one relates any dream.