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Nate Silver has made a career out of predicting things

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

#31

Post by waterlesscloud »

tptacek wrote: post #29
waterlesscloud wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sure, but I'm having a hard time imagining the answer to either question has changed. If it had, I'm sure he's capable of having that information removed from a post bearing his name.

Lots of people who supported Obama in 2008 no longer do. Meanwhile, why are you so sure he'd update a FAQ entry on a site he no longer maintains?

His name is right there on the FAQ. He's a media figure, of at least some note, who makes his living predicting political outcomes. If he had changed his stand, he would have the information removed from something bearing his name. It has direct impact on perception about his work.

He'd have it changed.

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

#32

Post by anamax »

derleth wrote: post #15
andrewljohnson wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.o…

> It's a fairly settled issue in social science, though, that abstinence-only sex ed doesn't work.

So? The alternative to abstinence-only sex ed isn't perfection, it's a bunch of stuff that doesn't work all that well either.

Your links are all behind paywalls. That said, they're probably just like the other work on the subject. Their "measure of success" is curious at best. (No, reducing teen pregnancy isn't the only goal.)

As to "telling teaching inaccuracies", no other teaching is held to that standard, so why is abstinence-only sex ed held to that standard?

Note - I think that abstinence-only sex ed is a bad idea. My point is that the arguments are not "scientific" or fair. That said, they are doing a great job in discrediting science. If that's your goal....

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

#33

Post by tptacek »

waterlesscloud wrote: post #31
tptacek wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Lots of people who supported Obama in 2008 no longer do. Meanwhile, why are you so sure he'd update a FAQ entry on a site he no longer maintains?

His name is right there on the FAQ. He's a media figure, of at least some note, who makes his living predicting political outcomes. If he had changed his stand, he would have the information removed from something bearing his name. It has direct impact on perception about his work. He'd have it changed.

Disagree; you can't even get to www.fivethirtyeight.com anymore (it redirects to NYT) and Silver is pretty transparent; I think if that affiliation was dependable information, it'd be somewhere in the masthead of his blog.

It's not important either way.

(For what it's worth: I still support Obama).

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

#34

Post by mjcohenw »

andrewljohnson wrote: post #28
waterlesscloud wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 wond…

If it truly is science vs. religion, then the Republican party will die and be reborn as something new. Religion loses to science over the course of history.

I wish that were true. Once religion, especially fundamentalist religion, gets control, science is in real trouble.

Read Heinlein's "Revolt in 2100".

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

#35

Post by nhebb »

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,…

> is there a Republican analog to Nate Silver?

No, not directly. RealClearPoltics (http://www.realclearpolitics.com) aggregates polling data, but it doesn't analyze it. Sean Trende does some analysis of the polls, but he is a lawyer and political scientist, not a mathematician.

Other than that, pollster Scott Rasmussen (http://www.rasmussenreports.com/) has a solid track record forecasting outcomes and is the closest thing to a Nate Silver analog.

Edit: > does the meta-math

BTW, I think one of the most interesting things that will come out of this election is the impact of cell phones on polling data. The meta-math is based on the sampling models for each pollster, and the models have to take land line / cell phone demographics into consideration. Many pollsters only call land lines and try to accommodate for the demographics in their polling, but it's not certain how accurate their models are.

There has been a shift in land line demographics in the last four years. Lower income people used to have land lines only and mid to upper income people had land lines plus cell. land line usage has dropped a lot. In recent years, lower income people tend to have cell phones only. It will be interesting to see how the the election results compare to the polling data.

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

#36

Post by anamax »

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?

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

The correlation is with misunderstanding all three and coming to bogus conclusions.

Let's take evolution. There are lots of folks, typically Democrats, who insist that it is fundamental to all of science. (Hint - that's clearly false. Disagree? How does evolution matter outside biology? Too hard? Name three biology subfields that don't work without evolution? Too hard? Name three things in biology that were predicted using evolution?)

Democrats like to think that they're scientific, but ....

Let's take the suggestion that state of mind affects conception in humans. Clearly false when Akin said it, but what does everyone say to a couple trying to get pregnant? Yup - "you've got to maintain a positive mental attitude." (I don't know whether mental attitude matters - I'm just pointing out the double-standard.)

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

#37

Post by textminer »

tptacek wrote: post #22
textminer wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Today's the day you learn about Yogiisms.

Sure it's Yogi? It's also attributed to Samuel Goldwyn and Mark Twain. (I doubt the Twain association).

Also, Poor Richard's Almanac and Oscar Wilde.

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

#38

Post by rayiner »

anamax wrote: post #32
derleth wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.o…

> It's a fairly settled issue in social science, though, that abstinence-only sex ed doesn't work. So? The alternative to abstinence-only sex ed isn't perfection, it's a bunch of stuff that doesn't work all that well either. Your links are all behind paywalls. That said, they're probably just like the other work on the subject. Their "measure of success" is curious at best. (No, reducing teen pregnancy isn't the only…

> As to "telling teaching inaccuracies", no other teaching is held to that standard, so why is abstinence-only sex ed held to that standard?

Because kids going around with misconceptions about what really caused the American Revolution is less dangerous than kids going around with misconceptions about reproductive issues.

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

#39

Post by tptacek »

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…

This is a little silly. Intelligent people could easily vote for the candidate of the party that is toughest on public-sector unions for one office and the candidate who is most supportive of a carbon tax for another office, believing both that public sector unions and their pension commitments are out of control and in anthropogenic global warming, and make those choices dependent on the impact those beliefs have on the role. The governor of Wisconsin is poorly situated to influence climate politics, while control of the Senate might not have much influence on whether employees get defined-benefit pensions.

The political parties themselves would very much like you to believe that you're along with them for the ride on all their issues, and this no doubt accounts for much of the strongly held beliefs of both Democrats and Republicans. Push comes to shove, most people have not given much thought to the issues that politics have the most control over.

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

#40

Post by tptacek »

derleth wrote: post #15
andrewljohnson wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.o…

If the Democrats are so good at math, why have so many of their state governments bankrupted themselves with insane pension commitments?

Reality is much more nuanced than "blue versus red".

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