Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Nate Silver has made a career out of predicting things

slate.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

11–20 of 90 posts

Re: Nate Silver has made a career out of predicting things

#11

Post by sxcurry »

andrewljohnson wrote: post #7

Republicans say Nate Silver is a biased liberal, and reading his blog this election cycle makes it seem that way to me even. But I would like to know - is there a Republican analog to Nate Silver? Someone who predicts 90% of the races at the end, does the meta-math, and has a computer model? If there is no Republican analog, can you possibly say Nate Silver is liberal or biased? Does using a computer model and math,…

I don't think he has a leaning one way or the other - he tries to be unbiased, and arrive at data-driven conclusions. What have you seen from Nate that makes him seem a "biased liberal" to you? I'd be very interested to know. Also, we'll see in about a month how good his meta-analysis is.

Re: Nate Silver has made a career out of predicting things

#12

Post by andrewljohnson »

derleth wrote: post #8
andrewljohnson wrote: post #7

Republicans say Nate Silver is a biased liberal, and reading his blog this election cycle makes it seem that way to me even. But I would like to know - is there a Republican analog to Nate Silver? Someone who predicts 90% of the races at the end, does the meta-math, and has a computer model? If there is no Republican analog, can you possibly say Nate Silver is liberal or biased? Does using a computer model and math,…

Does following the scientific consensus on issues like anthropogenic global warming, evolution, and sex education make you a Democrat?

It correlates!

Global warming, 2/3 Republican deny it, more than 3/4 Democrats believe it: http://www.businessweek.com/news/2012-09-30/global-warming-l...

Creationism is 38% for Democrats, 60% for Republicans: http://www.cultureofscience.com/2011/08/19/republicans-and-d...

I think Republicans are more likely not to want to mention or distribute condoms to teens in sex education, but I don't regard this as quite the same general disregard for science and math.

Re: Nate Silver has made a career out of predicting things

#13

Post by andrewljohnson »

sxcurry wrote: post #11
andrewljohnson wrote: post #7

Republicans say Nate Silver is a biased liberal, and reading his blog this election cycle makes it seem that way to me even. But I would like to know - is there a Republican analog to Nate Silver? Someone who predicts 90% of the races at the end, does the meta-math, and has a computer model? If there is no Republican analog, can you possibly say Nate Silver is liberal or biased? Does using a computer model and math,…

I don't think he has a leaning one way or the other - he tries to be unbiased, and arrive at data-driven conclusions. What have you seen from Nate that makes him seem a "biased liberal" to you? I'd be very interested to know. Also, we'll see in about a month how good his meta-analysis is.

I can't put a finger on it, but you know which way he hopes things go, and I think that shows through, despite his attempts to stay unbiased, and despite the NYT style guide. I think a TV news anchor probably gives away his bias with body language too.

I like to tell myself that too, so I regard his work with at least a little skepticism, even though I gobble it up and bet on it.

Re: Nate Silver has made a career out of predicting things

#14

Post by smacktoward »

andrewljohnson wrote: post #7

Republicans say Nate Silver is a biased liberal, and reading his blog this election cycle makes it seem that way to me even. But I would like to know - is there a Republican analog to Nate Silver? Someone who predicts 90% of the races at the end, does the meta-math, and has a computer model? If there is no Republican analog, can you possibly say Nate Silver is liberal or biased? Does using a computer model and math,…

No, but the GOP side does have a Bizarro version of him: http://www.businessinsider.com/unskewed-polling-dean-chamber...

Re: Nate Silver has made a career out of predicting things

#15

Post by derleth »

andrewljohnson wrote: post #12
derleth wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Does following the scientific consensus on issues like anthropogenic global warming, evolution, and sex education make you a Democrat?

It correlates! Global warming, 2/3 Republican deny it, more than 3/4 Democrats believe it: http://www.businessweek.com/news/2012-09-30/global-warming-l... Creationism is 38% for Democrats, 60% for Republicans: http://www.cultureofscience.com/2011/08/19/republicans-and-d... I think Republicans are more likely not to want to mention or distribute condoms to teens in sex education, but I don't regard this as quite the s…

> I think Republicans are more likely not to want to mention or distribute condoms to teens in sex education, but I don't regard this as quite the same general disregard for science and math.

It's a fairly settled issue in social science, though, that abstinence-only sex ed doesn't work. Not a hard science, perhaps, but still a science in that it's data-driven and rejects hypotheses based on new data.

http://dx.doi.org/10.1097%2FGCO.0b013e3282efdc0b

http://journals.lww.com/co-obgyn/pages/articleviewer.aspx?ye...

Re: Nate Silver has made a career out of predicting things

#16

Post by tatsuke95 »

Nate Silver came from the fantastic world of the statistical analysis of baseball, specifically Baseball Prospectus. You can check out his body of work here (some articles require a subscription):

http://www.baseballprospectus.com/author/nate_silver/

His big contribution was a model used to predict player statistics. When he first started writing about politics, I assumed the name was a coincidence.

Re: Nate Silver has made a career out of predicting things

#17

Post by waterlesscloud »

andrewljohnson wrote: post #12
derleth wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Does following the scientific consensus on issues like anthropogenic global warming, evolution, and sex education make you a Democrat?

It correlates! Global warming, 2/3 Republican deny it, more than 3/4 Democrats believe it: http://www.businessweek.com/news/2012-09-30/global-warming-l... Creationism is 38% for Democrats, 60% for Republicans: http://www.cultureofscience.com/2011/08/19/republicans-and-d... I think Republicans are more likely not to want to mention or distribute condoms to teens in sex education, but I don't regard this as quite the s…

The greatest trick political parties ever pulled was making this kind of thing part of their images.

With only two choices, people are roped into supporting all kinds of things that make no sense for them. But you get "My party believes in science!" and "My party believes in God!" and it becomes part of people's political identities. And then all sorts of other issues are piled on top of it and you find yourself wondering how we got here.

It's ludicrous, really.

Re: Nate Silver has made a career out of predicting things

#18

Post by tptacek »

sxcurry wrote: post #11
andrewljohnson wrote: post #7

Republicans say Nate Silver is a biased liberal, and reading his blog this election cycle makes it seem that way to me even. But I would like to know - is there a Republican analog to Nate Silver? Someone who predicts 90% of the races at the end, does the meta-math, and has a computer model? If there is no Republican analog, can you possibly say Nate Silver is liberal or biased? Does using a computer model and math,…

I don't think he has a leaning one way or the other - he tries to be unbiased, and arrive at data-driven conclusions. What have you seen from Nate that makes him seem a "biased liberal" to you? I'd be very interested to know. Also, we'll see in about a month how good his meta-analysis is.

He leans Democratic and has said so on more than one occasion. He supported Obama in '08.

One gets the impression that his professional reputation is more important than his ideological affiliation, and so I find him pretty credible.

Re: Nate Silver has made a career out of predicting things

#19

Post by tptacek »

andrewcooke wrote: post #3

he's good because he's careful, he does the maths right, and he's doing meta-analysis, so he has more data than the people he's being compared to. but he's popular mainly because he can communicate so well. doing the maths right is not that hard.

The math he's using is not hard, but the data sets he's working with are annoying.

Re: Nate Silver has made a career out of predicting things

#20

Post by wilfra »

andrewljohnson wrote: post #7

Republicans say Nate Silver is a biased liberal, and reading his blog this election cycle makes it seem that way to me even. But I would like to know - is there a Republican analog to Nate Silver? Someone who predicts 90% of the races at the end, does the meta-math, and has a computer model? If there is no Republican analog, can you possibly say Nate Silver is liberal or biased? Does using a computer model and math,…

He is a biased liberal and reading any of his commentary should be viewed through that lens. He doesn't even make much of an effort to hide it, in 2008 on 538 he was basically rooting for Obama.

However that doesn't mean his models are wrong. When they show that Republicans are going to win (or have improved), he states that just as clearly as when the same is true for Democrats.

Post reply on HN