Reverse-engineering the problematic tail behavior of Fivethirtyeight forecast
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Reverse-engineering the problematic tail behavior of Fivethirtyeight forecast
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Re: Reverse-engineering the problematic tail behavior of Fivethirtyeight forecast
#2Not to nitpick, but it's Andrew Gelman. Murray Gell-Mann is the physicist.
Re: Reverse-engineering the problematic tail behavior of Fivethirtyeight forecast
#3[deleted]
Re: Reverse-engineering the problematic tail behavior of Fivethirtyeight forecast
#4An interesting read and a great concluding paragraph
Re: Reverse-engineering the problematic tail behavior of Fivethirtyeight forecast
#5Not to nitpick, but it's Andrew Gelman. Murray Gell-Mann is the physicist.
Haha I rolled in here to see if it was his son.
Re: Reverse-engineering the problematic tail behavior of Fivethirtyeight forecast
#6My biggest issue is when people say that it's a probabilistic model, and therefore it wasn't wrong in 2016 because 28% chance of winning is pretty high and you don't get probabilities. Well, guess what, this kind of model that provides a probabilistic estimate on a future event that cannot be repeated cannot be validated or falsified. It's basically junk science (if it has any aspirations of being scientific).
Re: Reverse-engineering the problematic tail behavior of Fivethirtyeight forecast
#7See also this Twitter thread from Nate Cohn (who has no dog in the fight): https://twitter.com/Nate_Cohn/status/1320042092694065153
Re: Reverse-engineering the problematic tail behavior of Fivethirtyeight forecast
#8> It didn't take very long to do the analysis. But it did then take another hour or so to write it up.
It's very interesting to see how long it takes people to do things. I am amazed that entire article took 1 hour to type up. I've spent entire afternoons trying to write shallower pieces of work.
Re: Reverse-engineering the problematic tail behavior of Fivethirtyeight forecast
#9My biggest issue is when people say that it's a probabilistic model, and therefore it wasn't wrong in 2016 because 28% chance of winning is pretty high and you don't get probabilities. Well, guess what, this kind of model that provides a probabilistic estimate on a future event that cannot be repeated cannot be validated or falsified. It's basically junk science (if it has any aspirations of being scientific).
You can check their forecasts on Senate and House races, where we have a lot more data points.
Re: Reverse-engineering the problematic tail behavior of Fivethirtyeight forecast
#10My biggest issue is when people say that it's a probabilistic model, and therefore it wasn't wrong in 2016 because 28% chance of winning is pretty high and you don't get probabilities. Well, guess what, this kind of model that provides a probabilistic estimate on a future event that cannot be repeated cannot be validated or falsified. It's basically junk science (if it has any aspirations of being scientific).
If I tell you an unweighted 6 sided die only has a 1 in 6 chance of coming up 6 and we roll it once and it comes up a 6 then that is not junk science.