Some of the better-known statistical rules of thumb that a smart consumer might think apply in polls are more nuanced than they seem. In other words, as is so often the case in life, it’s complicated.

In the last year, statistics have been unusually important in the news. How accurate is the COVID-19 test you or others are using? How do researchers know the effectiveness of new therapeutics for ...

Liberty Vittert is a member and ambassador of the Royal Statistical Society. The views in this article are entirely her own. What value do statistics really have when it comes to describing events ...

Andrew Gelman, a professor in the departments of statistics and political science at Columbia University, explains. A "3 percent margin of error" means that there is a 95 percent chance that the ...

While some polls find both races nearly tied or at least well within the poll’s estimated margin of error, Five Thirty Eight’s Nate Silver says Obama has a 90 percent chance of victory and ...