6 ms·

FiveThirtyEight relaunches on NYTimes.com

72 points by donohoe 16y ago

whakojacko 16y ago
Congrats to Nate Silver for his fantastic job. 538's success in predicting the 08 elections was really impressive and glad to see him get even more (well-deserved) coverage.
- spec 16y ago
  How about his failure in predicting UK elections results, US unemployment rate, Maine's same sex marriage vote, special Senate elections in Massachusetts? These are just a few examples that I remember. But then the NY Times thinks that Krugman deserves the coverage too...
  - kenjackson 16y ago
    You do realize that even people who have incredibly good prediction records, do get things wrong. You can't really point to a specific thing and say, "you suck because you didn't predict this". Look at the totality of their record. And Krugman has a Nobel Prize in Economics, and numerous other awards for his work in Economics. I honestly think you'd be hardpressed to find a more qualified economist (on matters of economics). You may not agree with him, but I don't think anyone at the NYTimes is losing sleep grappling with the issue of if Paul Krugman is worthy of being in the paper.
    - spec 16y ago
      The point was that selectively praising someone's accurate predictions without mentioning his failures is wrong. Krugman is a partisan hack that has a Nobel Prize is one very specific area of economics. It does not qualify him to opine on all other areas.
      - kenjackson 16y ago
        The poster was clearly congratulating Nate, and then pointing out something specifically that Nate had done well. It's like if you're congratulating Steve Jobs on a successful iPad launch. You aren't obligated to also mention all of the products he has worked on that haven't done so well. And I hardly doubt anyone was trying to convince you, or any other reader on HN, that Nate may have mispredicted something. In fact, I'm going to go out on a limb and say that there is no one on this planet who has not made a false prediction. But since you're so adamant about this, could you put together a list of his complete record with links? And sure, Krugman has a Nobel Prize, Clark Medal, Ivy League tenured job, nominated for a Pulitzer, but he'll have to live with spec calling him a partisan hack. I'm not sure anyone would mind that tradeoff.
        spec 16y ago
        No, that poster was claiming that his coverage was "well-deserved" and I disagreed. He was not obligated to mention his failures, but I did, and that apparently troubles you greatly for some reason. Silver's whole reputation is based on his assumed accuracy and that's why it is important to provide a more complete record of his predictions (not that my post claims to do that or that I would care enough to do that; since you are so impressed by him, you're welcome to try). Krugman's reputation as a partisan hack that opines on matter he is ignorant about is among other economists with no fewer accomplishments (but his reputation as a pompous ass is among everyone else).
        msg 16y ago
        Eerie success is impressive. Routine failure is not anti-impressive. People treat Google the same way every time some Labs experiment like Wave fails. They think it means Google's lost their Edge and spinning their wheels. It's equal-and-opposite pessimism to go with the optimism. This is why I do not treat your counterexamples to Silver's accuracy as a convincing slate of proofs. I don't have enough context to judge those failures against the background of his success or vice versa. I do find Nate Silver interesting not just for his psychic abilities. He also brings a certain love of statistics and visualization that deserves the level of coverage he gets. Is he doing any better predicting than some quant or world-class stat guy? No, and you can probably find someone who has a better combination of predictions and historical accidents. But he's also bringing the science to the populace, and that is worth praising and talking about. I do find this 2005 (!) opinion piece by Krugman calling the housing bubble to be an interesting datapoint. http://www.nytimes.com/2005/08/08/opinion/08krugman.html http://www.nytimes.com/2005/08/08/opinion/08krugman.html But between the Silver stuff and the Krugman stuff I do feel like I have enough context to judge that you have your own axe to grind.
    - lionhearted 16y ago
      > And Krugman has a Nobel Prize in Economics, and numerous other awards for his work in Economics. I honestly think you'd be hardpressed to find a more qualified economist (on matters of economics). Krugman's Nobel work was on international trade, and it's lightyears different from his popular work. Outside of international trade, I'd say if you compared him to someone like John Forbes Nash or Vilfredo Pareto, you'd find him sorely lacking. His Nobel is arguably well deserved, but his popular stuff is not Nobel-quality economic work and shouldn't be mistaken for it. Edit: This is all tangential to the Silver discussion. I like Nate Silver, he seems like a smart guy who explains things well and it's very cool he's moving over to a larger platform.
      - pkulak 16y ago
        It's still a Nobel prize in economics. John Carmack made his name writing 3D games, but if he was standing behind me while I was writing some web code and had some ideas for me, I wouldn't tell him to piss off because he's a game programmer.
        wlievens 16y ago
        It would be very creepy to have Carmack standing behind you all the time.
        pierre_M 16y ago
        The thing about economics is that there's two diametrically opposed schools of thought on just about any issue you'd like to name. Krugman is a smart dude, and a fierce advocate for one side of any given issue, but I wouldn't swallow his arguments whole without hearing from the other side as well.
    - andre3k1 16y ago
      As someone who has spent the better part of their life studying economics, I would have to disagree. Krugman is by no means a respected economist. I would even go as far as to say that he is regarded as being a laughing stock in our field. Search "Nobel Krugman Fraud." Better yet, here's a direct link: http://www.lewrockwell.com/anderson/anderson229.html http://www.lewrockwell.com/anderson/anderson229.html
    - pierre_M 16y ago
      You do realize that even people who have incredibly good prediction records, do get things wrong. You can't really point to a specific thing and say, "you suck because you didn't predict this". Look at the totality of their record. On the other hand, only one thing he's done well has been mentioned versus several things he's done badly. One success doesn't cancel out four failures.
  - aamar 16y ago
    Agree that we should be thoughtful of the misses as well as the hits, and he's had some misses. However, I didn't recall Silver getting the special MA Senate election of Scott Brown wrong, and he seems not to have: (http://www.fivethirtyeight.com/2010/01/538-model-posits-brown-as-31-favorite.html http://www.fivethirtyeight.com/2010/01/538-model-posits-brow...). It would have been surprising if he did, since it was an easy one. Were you thinking of a different election?
    - spec 16y ago
      You're right - it appears that he updated his model right before the elections and I only saw his earlier posts. However, he had a post in 2009 entitled "Could a Republican Win Ted Kennedy's Senate Seat?" with his answer being "Very probably not."
      - wtallis 16y ago
        His modus operandi is to build a model and feed it data as it becomes available. So when polling of a race is inconsistent and infrequent until right before the election, you shouldn't imply that it is at all improper behavior or Nate Silver's fault if his model and thus his prediction change drastically right before an election. As for the early, subjective post about the odds, that was posted on 27 August 2009, just days after Ted Kennedy died, long before there was any concrete information about who would run even for the primaries, and before there was any concrete information about the electoral influence of the tea party movement. And Nate Silver was still probably right that Romney wouldn't have been able to take Kennedy's seat, since Romney wouldn't have attracted as many of the Tea Party voters.
        spec 16y ago
        Based on your post, it appears that you don't understand how things like statistical significance work. If there is not enough data to make a prediction, you simply should not make a prediction and wait. If you ignore this and your whole business is based on the accuracy of your predictions, expect to be held accountable. You also apparently didn't read his post I mentioned. It does not talk about just Romney. Here is the direct quote: "As for other Republicans in Massachusetts, their prospects don't figure to be much better." Silver's whole failed business was based on what Taleb called the "Ludic fallacy" in The Black Swan.
  - dandelany 16y ago
    Honestly, I don't find value in 538 based on the accuracy of its predictions, I find it in Nate's thoughtful and uncommonly math-informed analysis and commentary.
  - wtallis 16y ago
    So, he doesn't always get it right when there's a dearth of good polling data on hard-to-predict issues. And an American didn't do a very good job on his first attempt to predict a parliamentary election. Big deal. He's only been in this business for two years, and in that time he's truly earned himself a good reputation. He's also been more open about his methodology than anybody in the mainstream media, and as he gets experience and constructive criticism he's put it to use improving his models. Regardless of whatever axe you have to grind, acquiring 538 represents a raising of the bar for the NYT's standards. (The 538 team has been open enough about their methodology that it is very tempting to simply tell you to put up or shut up: Either find and explain some real flaws in his methods, come up with a better evidence-based method to predict something, or don't criticize him.)
jakarta 16y ago
Direct link: http://fivethirtyeight.blogs.nytimes.com/ http://fivethirtyeight.blogs.nytimes.com/
lallysingh 16y ago
What's exciting to me is that Nate's got a voice in the NY Times. That the NY Times voice is suddenly more open, scientific, and math-centric in their political reporting. I hope the trend continues in other areas of the NYT.
- klenwell 16y ago
  This is not a new trend. The Times even offers a set of APIs: http://developer.nytimes.com/docs http://developer.nytimes.com/docs
grandalf 16y ago
Congrats to Nate, but I wonder why this was necessary. How could this possibly lead to better quality posts?
- jonknee 16y ago
  He can focus on doing research, not having to run a business.
- kno 16y ago
  Not necessary better quality post but better income; key for the blog survival.
- jorgeortiz85 16y ago
  For one thing, he gets access to the superb (unrivaled?) dataviz team at the Times.
- sfall 16y ago
  He also gets access to their data sources
- MaysonL 16y ago
  Much faster page loads. YMMV
- akgerber 16y ago
  His posts feel like they have a bit of a cleaner voice; I'd guess they've been run past Times editors.
metamemetics 16y ago
For a second I got them confused with TwentyThreeSix and was momentarily excited. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K3Z-Jqe5yG4 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K3Z-Jqe5yG4
- furyg3 16y ago
  This is most certainly a sidetrack, but a worthwhile one.

72 points by donohoe 16y ago

Congrats to Nate Silver for his fantastic job. 538's success in predicting the 08 elections was really impressive and glad to see him get even more (well-deserved) coverage.

spec 16y ago
How about his failure in predicting UK elections results, US unemployment rate, Maine's same sex marriage vote, special Senate elections in Massachusetts? These are just a few examples that I remember. But then the NY Times thinks that Krugman deserves the coverage too...
- kenjackson 16y ago
  You do realize that even people who have incredibly good prediction records, do get things wrong. You can't really point to a specific thing and say, "you suck because you didn't predict this". Look at the totality of their record. And Krugman has a Nobel Prize in Economics, and numerous other awards for his work in Economics. I honestly think you'd be hardpressed to find a more qualified economist (on matters of economics). You may not agree with him, but I don't think anyone at the NYTimes is losing sleep grappling with the issue of if Paul Krugman is worthy of being in the paper.
  - spec 16y ago
    The point was that selectively praising someone's accurate predictions without mentioning his failures is wrong. Krugman is a partisan hack that has a Nobel Prize is one very specific area of economics. It does not qualify him to opine on all other areas.
    - kenjackson 16y ago
      The poster was clearly congratulating Nate, and then pointing out something specifically that Nate had done well. It's like if you're congratulating Steve Jobs on a successful iPad launch. You aren't obligated to also mention all of the products he has worked on that haven't done so well. And I hardly doubt anyone was trying to convince you, or any other reader on HN, that Nate may have mispredicted something. In fact, I'm going to go out on a limb and say that there is no one on this planet who has not made a false prediction. But since you're so adamant about this, could you put together a list of his complete record with links? And sure, Krugman has a Nobel Prize, Clark Medal, Ivy League tenured job, nominated for a Pulitzer, but he'll have to live with spec calling him a partisan hack. I'm not sure anyone would mind that tradeoff.
      - spec 16y ago
        No, that poster was claiming that his coverage was "well-deserved" and I disagreed. He was not obligated to mention his failures, but I did, and that apparently troubles you greatly for some reason. Silver's whole reputation is based on his assumed accuracy and that's why it is important to provide a more complete record of his predictions (not that my post claims to do that or that I would care enough to do that; since you are so impressed by him, you're welcome to try). Krugman's reputation as a partisan hack that opines on matter he is ignorant about is among other economists with no fewer accomplishments (but his reputation as a pompous ass is among everyone else).
        msg 16y ago
        Eerie success is impressive. Routine failure is not anti-impressive. People treat Google the same way every time some Labs experiment like Wave fails. They think it means Google's lost their Edge and spinning their wheels. It's equal-and-opposite pessimism to go with the optimism. This is why I do not treat your counterexamples to Silver's accuracy as a convincing slate of proofs. I don't have enough context to judge those failures against the background of his success or vice versa. I do find Nate Silver interesting not just for his psychic abilities. He also brings a certain love of statistics and visualization that deserves the level of coverage he gets. Is he doing any better predicting than some quant or world-class stat guy? No, and you can probably find someone who has a better combination of predictions and historical accidents. But he's also bringing the science to the populace, and that is worth praising and talking about. I do find this 2005 (!) opinion piece by Krugman calling the housing bubble to be an interesting datapoint. http://www.nytimes.com/2005/08/08/opinion/08krugman.html http://www.nytimes.com/2005/08/08/opinion/08krugman.html But between the Silver stuff and the Krugman stuff I do feel like I have enough context to judge that you have your own axe to grind.
  - lionhearted 16y ago
    > And Krugman has a Nobel Prize in Economics, and numerous other awards for his work in Economics. I honestly think you'd be hardpressed to find a more qualified economist (on matters of economics). Krugman's Nobel work was on international trade, and it's lightyears different from his popular work. Outside of international trade, I'd say if you compared him to someone like John Forbes Nash or Vilfredo Pareto, you'd find him sorely lacking. His Nobel is arguably well deserved, but his popular stuff is not Nobel-quality economic work and shouldn't be mistaken for it. Edit: This is all tangential to the Silver discussion. I like Nate Silver, he seems like a smart guy who explains things well and it's very cool he's moving over to a larger platform.
    - pkulak 16y ago
      It's still a Nobel prize in economics. John Carmack made his name writing 3D games, but if he was standing behind me while I was writing some web code and had some ideas for me, I wouldn't tell him to piss off because he's a game programmer.
      - wlievens 16y ago
        It would be very creepy to have Carmack standing behind you all the time.
      - pierre_M 16y ago
        The thing about economics is that there's two diametrically opposed schools of thought on just about any issue you'd like to name. Krugman is a smart dude, and a fierce advocate for one side of any given issue, but I wouldn't swallow his arguments whole without hearing from the other side as well.
  - andre3k1 16y ago
    As someone who has spent the better part of their life studying economics, I would have to disagree. Krugman is by no means a respected economist. I would even go as far as to say that he is regarded as being a laughing stock in our field. Search "Nobel Krugman Fraud." Better yet, here's a direct link: http://www.lewrockwell.com/anderson/anderson229.html http://www.lewrockwell.com/anderson/anderson229.html
  - pierre_M 16y ago
    You do realize that even people who have incredibly good prediction records, do get things wrong. You can't really point to a specific thing and say, "you suck because you didn't predict this". Look at the totality of their record. On the other hand, only one thing he's done well has been mentioned versus several things he's done badly. One success doesn't cancel out four failures.
- aamar 16y ago
  Agree that we should be thoughtful of the misses as well as the hits, and he's had some misses. However, I didn't recall Silver getting the special MA Senate election of Scott Brown wrong, and he seems not to have: (http://www.fivethirtyeight.com/2010/01/538-model-posits-brown-as-31-favorite.html http://www.fivethirtyeight.com/2010/01/538-model-posits-brow...). It would have been surprising if he did, since it was an easy one. Were you thinking of a different election?
  - spec 16y ago
    You're right - it appears that he updated his model right before the elections and I only saw his earlier posts. However, he had a post in 2009 entitled "Could a Republican Win Ted Kennedy's Senate Seat?" with his answer being "Very probably not."
    - wtallis 16y ago
      His modus operandi is to build a model and feed it data as it becomes available. So when polling of a race is inconsistent and infrequent until right before the election, you shouldn't imply that it is at all improper behavior or Nate Silver's fault if his model and thus his prediction change drastically right before an election. As for the early, subjective post about the odds, that was posted on 27 August 2009, just days after Ted Kennedy died, long before there was any concrete information about who would run even for the primaries, and before there was any concrete information about the electoral influence of the tea party movement. And Nate Silver was still probably right that Romney wouldn't have been able to take Kennedy's seat, since Romney wouldn't have attracted as many of the Tea Party voters.
      - spec 16y ago
        Based on your post, it appears that you don't understand how things like statistical significance work. If there is not enough data to make a prediction, you simply should not make a prediction and wait. If you ignore this and your whole business is based on the accuracy of your predictions, expect to be held accountable. You also apparently didn't read his post I mentioned. It does not talk about just Romney. Here is the direct quote: "As for other Republicans in Massachusetts, their prospects don't figure to be much better." Silver's whole failed business was based on what Taleb called the "Ludic fallacy" in The Black Swan.
- dandelany 16y ago
  Honestly, I don't find value in 538 based on the accuracy of its predictions, I find it in Nate's thoughtful and uncommonly math-informed analysis and commentary.
- wtallis 16y ago
  So, he doesn't always get it right when there's a dearth of good polling data on hard-to-predict issues. And an American didn't do a very good job on his first attempt to predict a parliamentary election. Big deal. He's only been in this business for two years, and in that time he's truly earned himself a good reputation. He's also been more open about his methodology than anybody in the mainstream media, and as he gets experience and constructive criticism he's put it to use improving his models. Regardless of whatever axe you have to grind, acquiring 538 represents a raising of the bar for the NYT's standards. (The 538 team has been open enough about their methodology that it is very tempting to simply tell you to put up or shut up: Either find and explain some real flaws in his methods, come up with a better evidence-based method to predict something, or don't criticize him.)

jakarta 16y ago

Direct link: http://fivethirtyeight.blogs.nytimes.com/ http://fivethirtyeight.blogs.nytimes.com/

lallysingh 16y ago

What's exciting to me is that Nate's got a voice in the NY Times. That the NY Times voice is suddenly more open, scientific, and math-centric in their political reporting. I hope the trend continues in other areas of the NYT.

klenwell 16y ago
This is not a new trend. The Times even offers a set of APIs: http://developer.nytimes.com/docs http://developer.nytimes.com/docs

grandalf 16y ago

Congrats to Nate, but I wonder why this was necessary. How could this possibly lead to better quality posts?

jonknee 16y ago
He can focus on doing research, not having to run a business.
kno 16y ago
Not necessary better quality post but better income; key for the blog survival.
jorgeortiz85 16y ago
For one thing, he gets access to the superb (unrivaled?) dataviz team at the Times.
sfall 16y ago
He also gets access to their data sources
MaysonL 16y ago
Much faster page loads. YMMV
akgerber 16y ago
His posts feel like they have a bit of a cleaner voice; I'd guess they've been run past Times editors.

metamemetics 16y ago

For a second I got them confused with TwentyThreeSix and was momentarily excited. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K3Z-Jqe5yG4 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K3Z-Jqe5yG4

furyg3 16y ago
This is most certainly a sidetrack, but a worthwhile one.