The Best of FiveThirtyEight
10+ most popular FiveThirtyEight articles, as voted by our community.
Data-driven news and analysis from ABC News’s FiveThirtyEight
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These are currently making the rounds on Refind.
Americans Disagree On The Definition Of Art
Welcome to Pollapalooza, our weekly polling roundup. What is art? According to the Russian writer Leo Tolstoy, the activity of art is “to evoke in oneself a fee…
Why An Aging Population Might Not Doom The American Economy
The American economy is booming and robust. Just look at the chart below, which shows that the overall unemployment rate — the share of people within the labor …
FiveThirtyEight on Chess
We Taught Computers To Play Chess — And Then They Left Us Behind
The chess machines never stop playing.
FiveThirtyEight on Data Visualization
As Chess Booms, Magnus Carlsen Returns To Defend His Crown
It has been 1,090 days since the last World Chess Championship. In the meantime, the ancient game has seen a modern resurgence, a swell in popularity driven by …
FiveThirtyEight on Education
Teaching In The Age Of AI Means Getting Creative
Alarm bells seemed to sound in teachers’ lounges across America late last year with the debut of ChatGPT — an AI chatbot that was both easy to use and capable o…
Universities Say They Want More Diverse Faculties. So Why Is Academia Still So White?
When she was hired as a professor by Harvard University in 2013, Lorgia García Peña was the only Black Latina on a tenure track in the university’s Faculty of A…
FiveThirtyEight on Marriage
Marriage Isn’t Dead — Yet
Fewer Americans of all stripes are getting married. But beneath that overarching trend lies an important distinction: Some groups are merely delaying marriage, …
FiveThirtyEight on Politics
We Asked 2,000 Americans About Their Biggest Concern. The Resounding Answer: Inflation.
Inflation is top of mind for Americans. We asked them why they're so worried about it.
Congress Found An Easy Way To Fix Child Poverty. Then It Walked Away.
Imagine the federal government could lift millions of American children out of poverty with a single program. That program would help parents put nutritious mea…
«The expanded tax credit ended in December 2021, and chances are low it will be renewed. That tells you all you need to know about which is more powerful in Washington — politicians’ biases or actual evidence.»
FiveThirtyEight on Race
White Backlash Is A Type Of Racial Reckoning, Too
On May 25, 2020, George Perry Floyd Jr., a 46-year-old Black man, was murdered in broad daylight by Derek Chauvin, a white police officer with the Minneapolis P…
FiveThirtyEight on Soccer
We Timed Every Game. World Cup Stoppage Time Is Wildly Inaccurate.
The second half of Iran and Morocco’s tightly contested group match contained nothing too out of the ordinary by World Cup standards. Each side used all three s…
FiveThirtyEight on Sports
Soccer Looks Different When You Can’t See Who’s Playing
During the 2018 World Cup, Zito Madu pointed out the racially coded language commentators used to describe a match between Poland and Senegal, which didn’t line…
«The physical advantages that supposedly defined the African team’s style of play disappeared as soon as their skin color did.»
The World Cup's New High-Tech Ball Will Change Soccer Forever
When the 2022 World Cup made its debut on Sunday, it kicked off one of the most significant in-game uses of technology in sports history. All tournament long, m…
FiveThirtyEight on Transgender
Americans’ Support For LGBTQ Rights Often Stops With Transgender Rights
In his concurring opinion in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, Justice Clarence Thomas wrote that he views not only abortion precedent as wrong but …
Popular
These are some all-time favorites with Refind users.
Why The Same Temperature Can Feel Different Somewhere Else
In much of the United States, the high 80s in Fahrenheit is hot, but it’s not hot-hot. It could even be a day of sweet relief in the South, maybe time for a fam…
Can Smiling Really Make You Happier?
Before we get started, do me a favor and grab a pen or a pencil. Now hold it between your teeth, as if you were about to try to write with it. Don’t let your li…
«A failed attempt to replicate a particular experiment doesn’t really tell you anything about the underlying theory, he said; all it tells you is that one particular design works or doesn’t work.»
What Happens When American Children Learn About Racism?
Americans have spent over 150 years arguing about what kind of history we should teach to our children. In “Schoolbook Nation,” a book that examines the history…
How The NBA Is Using Summer League — And Virtual Reality — To Train Refs
Partway through a postgame video review within the bowels of the arena, referees Cheryl Flores and Robert Hussey hang their heads in dismay and disbelief over a…
2020 Election Forecast
Latest forecast of the 2020 presidential election between President Donald Trump and Joe Biden by Nate Silver’s FiveThirtyEight
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