Hey, Let’s Chill Out

In this tumultuous presidential race, it’s time for people to step back and take a deep breath. Whenever I hear someone say, “This time is different,” I have to repress the urge to roll my eyes. In life, when something hasn’t ever happened or hasn’t occurred in a really long time, in the end, it probably won’t happen this time, either. In sports, an athlete or a team that has won before is more likely to win a given competition than one that has never come out on top. That goes especially for a contestant who has never even played the game. So, too, in politics. People who have won elections are more likely to win than people who haven’t, particularly people who have never even run before. We can all think of athletes or candidates who’d never won but finally succeeded; every winner had to win a first time. But the further up the ladder you go, the more the usual outcome is likely to hold. Statisticians use terms such as “regression to the mean” or “revert to the