What is true? Who won the election? What’s my mark?
I used to tell my students that their mark was an estimate, at best ±5% uncertainty. I railed against having to assign precise percentages, and having conversations regarding those precise percentages. Perhaps most egregious was the school award for best mark in a course, which may have had several sections and multiple teachers. Often what separated the winner and runner up was 1%.
When I had that discussion, I also brought up election results. I *used* to used the Florida recount in 2000 (remember hanging chads?) but updated the example as time went by.
This would have been a nice addition to the discussion:
