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Demystifying conditional probability

Chances are
by Steven Strogatz, New York Times, Opinionator blog, 25 April 2010

Steven Strogatz, an applied mathematics professor at Cornell University, has been writing highly engaging weekly installments about mathematics for the Opinionator. His post this week is about probability; more specifically, it focuses on conditional probability. Of course, this topic is a notorious source of confusion. (Indeed, this edition of Chance News includes another appearance of the Monty Hall problem, which refuses to stay solved!)

Submitted by Bill Peterson, based on a suggestion from Dan Bent (an intro statistics student)

Tea party graphics

A mighty pale tea
by Charles M. Blow, New York Times, 16 April 2010

This article recounts Blow's experience visiting a Tea Party rally as a self-identified "infiltrator." He was interested in assessing the group's diversity. Reproduced below is a portion of a graphic, entitled The many shades of whites, that accompanied the article.

The data are from a recent NYT/CBS Poll.

Submitted by Paul Alper