Vaguely interesting (Nov 17)

(1)  “A Chinese group has become the first to inject a person with cells that contain genes edited using the revolutionary CRISPR–Cas9 technique. … ‘I think this is going to trigger ‘Sputnik 2.0’, a biomedical duel on progress between China and the United States …’”

(2)  “Now, it was possible that we had entered a period with a ‘presidential’ electorate and a ‘midterm’ electorate, but it was foolish to dismiss the possibility of a mean reversion once a charismatic history-making candidate such as Barack Obama didn’t top the ticket.”

(3)  “There is no single answer to the question of why Trump won the presidency in 2016. The election was close, so many factors plausibly had an influence larger than Trump’s margin of victory in the relevant states.”

(4)  “This kind of comically large impact is why you can’t take poll respondents at their word when they explain to you how they voted. Trump’s message was that the economy was terrible, and Trump voters agreed with his message, but the causal arrow there could point in any direction.”

(5)  “Stories are still circulating a week after the election that turnout fell sharply from 2012. That’s almost certainly not true.”

(6)  “If the United States contained just 100 adults, 25 would be people who identify with evangelical Protestant denominations, 23 would be religiously unaffiliated and 21 would be Catholic. Just two would be Mormon, two would be Jewish and one would be Muslim.”