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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

#61

Post by anamax »

btilly wrote: post #60
anamax wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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 biol…

There are lots of folks, typically Democrats, who insist that it is fundamental to all of science. (Hint - that's clearly false. Disagree? Of course evolution is not fundamental to ALL of science. For instance chemistry is based on current measurements, not what happened in prehistory. But you are overstating your position. How does evolution matter outside biology? Evolution matters to geology because specific fossi…

> Now let me guess. You don't believe in evolution,

Wrong.

> Evolution matters to geology because specific fossils are often used as a cross-reference for the age of specific rocks.

Evolution doesn't tell you how old a fossil is. Evolution says that there's a path, but doesn't say how long each step took.

> There are also applications of fossils to astronomy, for instance fossil corals have been used to verify how the number of days in a year have changed over time.

You're confusing evolution with fossils.

Slaver ant behavior isn't dependent on evolution. (Also, everyone believes in selective breeding. Evolution is more.)

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

#63

Post by btilly »

anamax wrote: post #61
btilly wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are lots of folks, typically Democrats, who insist that it is fundamental to all of science. (Hint - that's clearly false. Disagree? Of course evolution is not fundamental to ALL of science. For instance chemistry is based on current measurements, not what happened in prehistory. But you are overstating your position. How does evolution matter outside biology? Evolution matters to geology because specific fossi…

> Now let me guess. You don't believe in evolution, Wrong. > Evolution matters to geology because specific fossils are often used as a cross-reference for the age of specific rocks. Evolution doesn't tell you how old a fossil is. Evolution says that there's a path, but doesn't say how long each step took. > There are also applications of fossils to astronomy, for instance fossil corals have been used to verify how th…

Evolution tells you that a fossil of a given type cannot be older than ancestral types, and is unlikely to be younger than descendant types. That sandwiches the age fairly nicely.

But if you want a prediction that applies to geology, evolution predicted - long before physical mechanisms were known for it - that specific land masses must have been connected in the distant past. And even put approximate dates on the connection. This lead to endless speculations of land bridges, etc - and also a crazy theory called continental drift. (Which was eventually proven correct.)

There you have it. Relevant predictions in the field of geology which depend in critical ways upon Darwin's theory of descent with modification.

As for slaver ant behavior, you asked for a prediction from evolution. The detailed study of ant behavior was undertaken exactly because evolutionary theory predicted specific behavior. Thus it is a prediction of evolution, regardless of the fact that you can try to explain it with selective breeding. But that said, the time it would take selective breeding to match the exact ratios predicted by theory is sufficiently long that you wind up with evidence of evolution. Evolution further predicts that the actual genetic mechanism by which this behavior is controlled is likely to be conserved across many ant species. I do not know whether this has been studied (it probably has, but I cannot confirm that), but there is another prediction for you.

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

#64

Post by adestefan »

spamizbad wrote: post #59
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,…

Well the proof is in the pudding. His performance on the 2008 and 2010 election indicate to me he's not some partisan hack. He accurately predicted all of the EVs Obama obtained in 2008 with the exception of Indiana (which was quite close - only a few hundred votes in the margin IIRC). He did exceptionally well in 2010, coming in 3rd for accuracy behind Survey USA and PPP (A democratic shop, incidentally) in house ra…

Rasmussen is well known to have a decent conservative slant because of the way they select their population and perform their polling. I'll leave it as an exercise to the reader to decide if this is intentional or not.

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

#65

Post by wdr1 »

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…

> It correlates!

Not extremely well. You've cherry-picked your data to support your theory.

Specifically, I notice you don't touch on those who reject vaccinations, practice homeopathy, or believe Feng shui goes beyond aesthetics.

As someone living in a very large, liberal city and hailing from a rural, conservative town, I can tell you the Republicans of the world are not the ones debating if vaccinations cause autism. The ones I know think it's moronic & hideously irresponsible not to vaccinate your child.

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

#66

Post by Thrymr »

sendos wrote: post #49
SkyMarshal wrote: post #2

[1]: http://fivethirtyeight.com [2]: http://electoral-vote.com

FYI, I use the data from electoral-vote.com to turn it into a probability of winning the election at http://prespredict.com

I like that your site shows the 2008 history right below the 2012 (although it is distracting that the scale in time is different between them). I couldn't even find that comparison when I looked for it on Nate Silver's site.

I'm curious about the methodology as well. Why didn't you choose more standard gaussian statistics for the differences, instead of the combination linear/step model? How much difference would it make?

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

#67

Post by spindritf »

wtallis wrote: post #62
seunosewa wrote: post #10

I'm lost. What are some of his latest predictions that came true?

Why do you only care about his recent predictions? What's unconvincing about the track record of the rest of his career?

If he has a good method, if he's on a right track, that method should generally be improving with more work and data so recent predictions should generally be better than distant ones.

Also, "You're only as good as your last envelope."

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

#68

Post by MartinCron »

anamax wrote: post #36
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?

> 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 biol…

I don't see the point in finding three of anything (is this Super Mario Bros?) but I was reminded of a great prediction made possible by the theory of evolution and thought it would be fun to share with people interested in the history of science.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xanthopan_morgani

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

#69

Post by MartinCron »

btilly wrote: post #63
anamax wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Now let me guess. You don't believe in evolution, Wrong. > Evolution matters to geology because specific fossils are often used as a cross-reference for the age of specific rocks. Evolution doesn't tell you how old a fossil is. Evolution says that there's a path, but doesn't say how long each step took. > There are also applications of fossils to astronomy, for instance fossil corals have been used to verify how th…

Evolution tells you that a fossil of a given type cannot be older than ancestral types, and is unlikely to be younger than descendant types. That sandwiches the age fairly nicely. But if you want a prediction that applies to geology, evolution predicted - long before physical mechanisms were known for it - that specific land masses must have been connected in the distant past. And even put approximate dates on the co…

Just a nit-pick: Continental Drift is the theory that the continents were floating on the ocean and has been replaced by plate tectonics. It's not right to say that theory is correct, even though it does align with the facts about Pangea, etc.

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

#70

Post by tricolon »

sendos wrote: post #49
SkyMarshal wrote: post #2

[1]: http://fivethirtyeight.com [2]: http://electoral-vote.com

FYI, I use the data from electoral-vote.com to turn it into a probability of winning the election at http://prespredict.com

Nice site! On the front page, when I hover of the 2008 graph, I see stats for Obama/Romney rather than Obama/McCain.
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