An even more extreme version of ‘regression to the mean’ is what Americans call the Sports Illustrated jinx. Whenever a sportsman appears on the cover of Sports Illustrated, goes the story, he is soon to fall from grace. But to get on the cover of the magazine you have to be at the absolute top of your game, one of the best sportsmen in the world; and to be the best in that week, you’re probably also having an unusual run of luck. Luck, or ‘noise’, generally passes, it ‘regresses to the mean’ by itself, as happens with throws of a die. If you fail to understand that, you start looking for
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