Assorted

Like this quote from Darwin:

Remember what risk the nations of Europe ran, not so many centuries ago of being overwhelmed by the Turks, and how ridiculous such an idea now is! The more civilized so-called Caucasian races have beaten the Turkish hollow in the struggle for existence. Looking to the world at no very distant date, what an endless number of the lower races will have been eliminated by the higher civilized races throughout the world.

And this one from The Descent of Man:

At some future period, not very distant as measured by centuries, the civilised races of man will almost certainly exterminate and replace throughout the world the savage races. At the same time the anthropomorphous apes, as Professor Schaaffhausen has remarked,16 will no doubt be exterminated. The break will then be rendered wider, for it will intervene between man in a more civilised state, as we may hope, than the Caucasian, and some ape as low as a baboon, instead of as at present between the negro or Australian and the gorilla.

The third conclusion is spurious. Congressional candidates with more money win 93% of the time because incumbency is an overwhelming advantage, correlated with both superior fundraising and higher victory rates. Removed from incumbency, money has a decidedly smaller effect. In a year when incumbency’s benefits are mitigated more heavily than usual, the aid of additional dollars is particularly less dramatic.

Christopher Cassidy (an above commentor) is correct. Though much can be learned from the flow of money to candidates — investors (or campaign contributors, if you prefer) are better served to push their money toward candidates likely to win — a much purer guage of this likelihood can be found in the gambling markets. Pure bettors are less influenced many of the influences, such as personal political preferences, that campaign contributors allow to affect their investment choices.