6 ms·

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 ther

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, and blogging about your results make you a Democrat?

derleth 14y ago
Does following the scientific consensus on issues like anthropogenic global warming, evolution, and sex education make you a Democrat?
- andrewljohnson 14y ago
  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-links-democrats-independents-isolating-romney 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-democrats-differ-on-evolution/ 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.
  - derleth 14y ago
    > 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://dx.doi.org/10.1097%2FGCO.0b013e3282efdc0b http://journals.lww.com/co-obgyn/pages/articleviewer.aspx?year=2007&issue=10000&article=00008&type=abstract http://journals.lww.com/co-obgyn/pages/articleviewer.aspx?ye...
    - anamax 14y ago
      > 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....
      - rayiner 14y ago
        > 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.
        anamax 14y ago
        > 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. Umm, if it doesn't matter whether it is true, why are we teaching it? And no, sex ed isn't the only dangerous thing that we mis-teach kids about. But, thanks for demonstrating your priorities. However, I'm still unclear on why I should be paying for them.
    - tptacek 14y ago
      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".
  - waterlesscloud 14y ago
    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.
    - andrewljohnson 14y ago
      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.
      - mjcohenw 14y ago
        I wish that were true. Once religion, especially fundamentalist religion, gets control, science is in real trouble. Read Heinlein's "Revolt in 2100".
        tokenadult 14y ago
        Read Heinlein's "Revolt in 2100". Is that intended as a recommendation of a scientific source about long-term trends cross-culturally? I got a big volume of the collected "future history" stories by Robert Heinlein out of the library a year ago, and I was disappointed by how poorly those stories have aged. I also figured out, by rereading Heinlein (a favorite author of mine when I was a kid) that he never informed any of his stories with much perspective from non-Western cultures (although I give him credit for being aware of that kind of issue). Since I spent three years in the 1980s and later another three years spanning the turn of the last century living in a non-Western country, I don't turn to Western science-fiction stories anymore for my social commentary. I like to read real science based on verifiable history to puzzle out social trends. I can recommend a source http://www.amazon.com/The-Better-Angels-Our-Nature/dp/0143122010/ http://www.amazon.com/The-Better-Angels-Our-Nature/dp/014312... and invite other readers here to recommend other sources. I'm not worried about fundamentalist religion "getting control" of science.
  - tptacek 14y ago
    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.
    - Alex3917 14y ago
      The Republicans are the ones responsible for the ridiculous union pensions, because those were what they offered in concession during the 60s and 70s instead of paying the workers a fair wage at the time. So why the hell would you vote Republican if you were against the pensions?
      - tptacek 14y ago
        Is that a serious question? Scott Walker is a Republican, not a Democrat. Also, the GOP of 2012 bears little relationship to the GOP of 1965. Barry Goldwater was practically on the fringe of the 1960's GOP. What party would Nelson Rockefeller belong to in 2012? You can vote a specific interest, you can vote a straight party line, you can vote out of ignorance. But one thing that makes zero sense is to vote party-line in 2012 to punish a party for what it did 60 years ago. Doing that has literally the opposite impact as you'd ostensibly intend.
        Alex3917 14y ago
        It's not about punishing one party for the past, it's about which party would be most likely to make future spending commitments without raising taxes now to pay for them. (Probably the one that's been doing it consistently for the past 50 years and is campaigning on a platform of doing it now.)
  - wdr1 14y ago
    > 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.
- anamax 14y ago
  > 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.)
  - MartinCron 14y ago
    There are lots of folks, typically Democrats, who insist that it is fundamental to all of science You can't, on the basis of zero real evidence, dismiss the theory that best fits the known facts, without causing harm to the understanding of the scientific method as a whole. So it is not that the one theory is so critical to all of science, but the act of throwing it out because it offends religious sensibilities is damaging.
  - MaysonL 14y ago
    So why are only 6% of scientists Republicans, when in Eisenhower's time it was 40%?
  - derleth 14y ago
    > 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? Gish Galloping wins you no support. It's a dishonest tactic that attempts to flood the opposition with questions that require more time to answer than they do to ask. It's a Denial of Service attack, not an argument. > 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.) Because Akin was minimizing rape. He was trying to de-legitimize the experiences of victims of a violent crime. Do you really not understand how people get upset over that?
- joshuahedlund 14y ago
  Yes, but only if you also ignore the scientific consensus on genetically modified food, vaccines, nuclear energy, and hydraulic fracking :)
  - archgoon 14y ago
    Three of those are policy issues (how much testing should be done on GMO's, how risk adverse should we be on nuclear power plants given the potential for shoddy construction like in Fukushima, where should we build energy plants and refineries). On these issues, the democrats are being, ironically enough, conservative, as in risk adverse. They are not denying that you _can_ grow GMO's, that you _can_ split the atom, or that you _can_ perform hydraulic fracking (which Obama has supported, so I don't see how this is a democrat issue). This is in stark contrast to the previous issues where the mere existence of a phenomenon (evolution, global warming, and the big bang) is denied. With luck, global warming will move into the policy disagreement realm, and out denial box soon. Anti-vaccination is a fringe movement, and party independent (Michelle Bachmann got on the anti-vax wagon). The democrats aren't putting anti-vaxxers on the house science committee.
  - derleth 14y ago
    I'd deny that anti-vaccine idiocy is part of the Democratic platform the same way anthropogenic global warming denialism is part of the Republican party platform. Do you have any evidence it is? I also don't know about anti-GMO idiocy, frankly.
    - wdr1 14y ago
      But frankly, there isn't anything in the GOP platform that is anthropogenic global warming denialism: http://www.gop.com/2012-republican-platform_America/ http://www.gop.com/2012-republican-platform_America/ Rather, many of those associated with the party do it, which is congruent with what he said about anti-GMO & anti-vaccine idiocy.
FreeKill 14y ago
It's just a time tested tactic of discrediting a result you dislike in order to prevent your constituents from becoming apathetic and potentially not voting. If Republicans actually concede that Nate Silver's results are legitimate and unbiased (if they are), than the party would have a much harder time raising money and getting out the vote. It's better to frame it as a conspiracy so less people take it seriously.
- sharkweek 14y ago
  If you follow much of his writing/tweeting, he doesn't disguise much opinion, which has a liberal slant - but the pure math of his project is pretty hard to argue against.
sxcurry 14y ago
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.
- andrewljohnson 14y ago
  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.
- tptacek 14y ago
  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.
  - waterlesscloud 14y ago
    He states straight out in his FAQ that he supports Obama. "What is your political affiliation? My state has non-partisan registration, so I am not registered as anything. I vote for Democratic candidates the majority of the time (though by no means always). This year, I have been a supporter of Barack Obama." And the next question - "Are your results biased toward your preferred candidates? I hope not, but that is for you to decide. I have tried to disclose as much about my methodology as possible."
    - tptacek 14y ago
      That's from 2008, right? FiveThirtyEight.com isn't his site anymore.
      - 14y ago
smacktoward 14y ago
No, but the GOP side does have a Bizarro version of him: http://www.businessinsider.com/unskewed-polling-dean-chambers-poll-bias-skewed-obama-romney-2012-9 http://www.businessinsider.com/unskewed-polling-dean-chamber...
- nnethercote 14y ago
  His methodology seems to be "ignore any poll that is bad for Republicans".
wilfra 14y ago
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.
- Alex3917 14y ago
  "He is a biased liberal and reading any of his commentary should be viewed through that lens." Are we reading the same blog? I've never seen him take sides on any issue.
arrrg 14y ago
Humans who are not biased probably do not exist. Or at least do not care or know about politics in the slightest. I think there is nothing wrong with that. That doesn't invalidate his work. I know too much about human biases to even try to claim that his do not influence his interpretations and work at all – I just don't think that's possible – but that is general and in all likelihood inevitable problem. I think it's pretty clear, however, that it's in his best interest to make accurate predictions, not partisan predictions. I do not think it's really helpful to start out with that question. It puts too much focus on what's actually important. Yeah, bias can be hard to detect, but a little bias does not make models useless and when there is a lot of bias you should actually be able to point at what's wrong with the model instead of having to resort to some diffuse claims of bias. Writing this made me think of Elisabeth Noelle-Neumann (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elisabeth_Noelle-Neumann http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elisabeth_Noelle-Neumann). I disagree with many of her views and I think it would be fair to call her biased after reading her most famous work (The Spiral of Silence), but I do respect her work. There is a difference.
nhebb 14y ago
> is there a Republican analog to Nate Silver? No, not directly. RealClearPoltics (http://www.realclearpolitics.com 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/ 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.
mkramlich 14y ago
Reminds me of the meme "reality has a well-known liberal bias". I don't know or suspect whether that's true or not. But I have noticed personally in life that whenever someone is both intelligent, educated, is compassionate/empathic and does long-term thinking, that person also seems to be "liberal", progressive or left-leaning, politics wise. Perhaps not always. But most of the time, based on my observations. I think if you have those traits but take away compassion/empathy, and focus more on short-term/short-range thinking, you're more likely to be "conservative", or right-leaning.
- waterlesscloud 14y ago
  What would you say about the tens of millions of Americans who are educated, religious, and give hundreds of millions of dollars to build schools, clinics, and missions around the world? Are they short-sighted or lacking compassion? I think this kind of binary political thinking is the most insidious thought virus we face. Far more dangerous than whether or not someone believes in evolution, because it separates us and makes us believe that the "others" have traits that they really don't have. It's awful.
  - mkramlich 14y ago
    You write as if you've somehow refuted or contradicted my words, but you haven't. I recommend looking again, more closely, at what I said. I choose words carefully. But I do understand the idea that religious people can be compassionate and give money away. So can atheists. So can intelligent people. So can both more and less educated people. It's orthogonal. And I never cited religion. And I was speaking in general terms based on direct, personal observation. Also I for one do not engage in "binary" political thinking -- not when I'm actually thinking internally -- though it's often useful when speaking in order to average out details and identify patterns and then express them concisely in public conversation. And as an additional point, if by 'mission' you mean a religious mission, then I'd say that I don't consider that to be a good thing. It's a bad thing. It spreads superstition, fear, make believe, childish mental states, obedience to arbitrary authority, silly rituals and fuzzy irrational thinking. Yes it also teaches relaxing and addictive chants and tunes, and feel good phrases. And the good parts, anything dealing with peace, compassion, charity, with community interaction, can all be done without the negative that comes from the religious baggage attached to it. Also, like your complaint about binary thinking being a bad thing. I don't think education is a binary quality. You're not either educated or not. There are many intermediate degrees and shades of grey, and types. So while I do think someone can be somewhat educated and religious, I don't think they're extremely well educated or intelligent. At least not both. Otherwise one would see that that particular emperor wears no clothes. But of course this is just the conclusion reached by many of us, not all of us. To each his own.
spamizbad 14y ago
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 race prediction. Silver is politically liberal but he's a stats guy at heart. The republican equivalent would be Unskewed Polls http://unskewedpolls.com/ http://unskewedpolls.com/ which re-weights partisan affiliation of polls to match Rasmussen (The result: Romney is WAY ahead). It's author isn't a big stats guy and goes more off gut. This comparison isn't entirely fair though. Republican polsters and aggregators are probably private, working inside campaigns and not for a public news organization. You can be politically liberal or conservative and not have it directly spill into your work.
- adestefan 14y ago
  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.
  - wtallis 14y ago
    While Rasmussen seems biased in the strict technical sense, it's otherwise relatively low-variance high-quality data, so the bias can be corrected for, leaving you with useful information.

derleth 14y ago

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

andrewljohnson 14y ago
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-links-democrats-independents-isolating-romney 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-democrats-differ-on-evolution/ 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.
- derleth 14y ago
  > 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://dx.doi.org/10.1097%2FGCO.0b013e3282efdc0b http://journals.lww.com/co-obgyn/pages/articleviewer.aspx?year=2007&issue=10000&article=00008&type=abstract http://journals.lww.com/co-obgyn/pages/articleviewer.aspx?ye...
  - anamax 14y ago
    > 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....
    - rayiner 14y ago
      > 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.
      - anamax 14y ago
        > 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. Umm, if it doesn't matter whether it is true, why are we teaching it? And no, sex ed isn't the only dangerous thing that we mis-teach kids about. But, thanks for demonstrating your priorities. However, I'm still unclear on why I should be paying for them.
  - tptacek 14y ago
    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".
- waterlesscloud 14y ago
  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.
  - andrewljohnson 14y ago
    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.
    - mjcohenw 14y ago
      I wish that were true. Once religion, especially fundamentalist religion, gets control, science is in real trouble. Read Heinlein's "Revolt in 2100".
      - tokenadult 14y ago
        Read Heinlein's "Revolt in 2100". Is that intended as a recommendation of a scientific source about long-term trends cross-culturally? I got a big volume of the collected "future history" stories by Robert Heinlein out of the library a year ago, and I was disappointed by how poorly those stories have aged. I also figured out, by rereading Heinlein (a favorite author of mine when I was a kid) that he never informed any of his stories with much perspective from non-Western cultures (although I give him credit for being aware of that kind of issue). Since I spent three years in the 1980s and later another three years spanning the turn of the last century living in a non-Western country, I don't turn to Western science-fiction stories anymore for my social commentary. I like to read real science based on verifiable history to puzzle out social trends. I can recommend a source http://www.amazon.com/The-Better-Angels-Our-Nature/dp/0143122010/ http://www.amazon.com/The-Better-Angels-Our-Nature/dp/014312... and invite other readers here to recommend other sources. I'm not worried about fundamentalist religion "getting control" of science.
- tptacek 14y ago
  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.
  - Alex3917 14y ago
    The Republicans are the ones responsible for the ridiculous union pensions, because those were what they offered in concession during the 60s and 70s instead of paying the workers a fair wage at the time. So why the hell would you vote Republican if you were against the pensions?
    - tptacek 14y ago
      Is that a serious question? Scott Walker is a Republican, not a Democrat. Also, the GOP of 2012 bears little relationship to the GOP of 1965. Barry Goldwater was practically on the fringe of the 1960's GOP. What party would Nelson Rockefeller belong to in 2012? You can vote a specific interest, you can vote a straight party line, you can vote out of ignorance. But one thing that makes zero sense is to vote party-line in 2012 to punish a party for what it did 60 years ago. Doing that has literally the opposite impact as you'd ostensibly intend.
      - Alex3917 14y ago
        It's not about punishing one party for the past, it's about which party would be most likely to make future spending commitments without raising taxes now to pay for them. (Probably the one that's been doing it consistently for the past 50 years and is campaigning on a platform of doing it now.)
- wdr1 14y ago
  > 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.
anamax 14y ago
> 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.)
- MartinCron 14y ago
  There are lots of folks, typically Democrats, who insist that it is fundamental to all of science You can't, on the basis of zero real evidence, dismiss the theory that best fits the known facts, without causing harm to the understanding of the scientific method as a whole. So it is not that the one theory is so critical to all of science, but the act of throwing it out because it offends religious sensibilities is damaging.
- MaysonL 14y ago
  So why are only 6% of scientists Republicans, when in Eisenhower's time it was 40%?
- derleth 14y ago
  > 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? Gish Galloping wins you no support. It's a dishonest tactic that attempts to flood the opposition with questions that require more time to answer than they do to ask. It's a Denial of Service attack, not an argument. > 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.) Because Akin was minimizing rape. He was trying to de-legitimize the experiences of victims of a violent crime. Do you really not understand how people get upset over that?
joshuahedlund 14y ago
Yes, but only if you also ignore the scientific consensus on genetically modified food, vaccines, nuclear energy, and hydraulic fracking :)
- archgoon 14y ago
  Three of those are policy issues (how much testing should be done on GMO's, how risk adverse should we be on nuclear power plants given the potential for shoddy construction like in Fukushima, where should we build energy plants and refineries). On these issues, the democrats are being, ironically enough, conservative, as in risk adverse. They are not denying that you _can_ grow GMO's, that you _can_ split the atom, or that you _can_ perform hydraulic fracking (which Obama has supported, so I don't see how this is a democrat issue). This is in stark contrast to the previous issues where the mere existence of a phenomenon (evolution, global warming, and the big bang) is denied. With luck, global warming will move into the policy disagreement realm, and out denial box soon. Anti-vaccination is a fringe movement, and party independent (Michelle Bachmann got on the anti-vax wagon). The democrats aren't putting anti-vaxxers on the house science committee.
- derleth 14y ago
  I'd deny that anti-vaccine idiocy is part of the Democratic platform the same way anthropogenic global warming denialism is part of the Republican party platform. Do you have any evidence it is? I also don't know about anti-GMO idiocy, frankly.
  - wdr1 14y ago
    But frankly, there isn't anything in the GOP platform that is anthropogenic global warming denialism: http://www.gop.com/2012-republican-platform_America/ http://www.gop.com/2012-republican-platform_America/ Rather, many of those associated with the party do it, which is congruent with what he said about anti-GMO & anti-vaccine idiocy.

FreeKill 14y ago

It's just a time tested tactic of discrediting a result you dislike in order to prevent your constituents from becoming apathetic and potentially not voting. If Republicans actually concede that Nate Silver's results are legitimate and unbiased (if they are), than the party would have a much harder time raising money and getting out the vote. It's better to frame it as a conspiracy so less people take it seriously.

sharkweek 14y ago
If you follow much of his writing/tweeting, he doesn't disguise much opinion, which has a liberal slant - but the pure math of his project is pretty hard to argue against.

sxcurry 14y ago

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.

andrewljohnson 14y ago
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.
tptacek 14y ago
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.
- waterlesscloud 14y ago
  He states straight out in his FAQ that he supports Obama. "What is your political affiliation? My state has non-partisan registration, so I am not registered as anything. I vote for Democratic candidates the majority of the time (though by no means always). This year, I have been a supporter of Barack Obama." And the next question - "Are your results biased toward your preferred candidates? I hope not, but that is for you to decide. I have tried to disclose as much about my methodology as possible."
  - tptacek 14y ago
    That's from 2008, right? FiveThirtyEight.com isn't his site anymore.
    - 14y ago

smacktoward 14y ago

No, but the GOP side does have a Bizarro version of him: http://www.businessinsider.com/unskewed-polling-dean-chambers-poll-bias-skewed-obama-romney-2012-9 http://www.businessinsider.com/unskewed-polling-dean-chamber...

nnethercote 14y ago
His methodology seems to be "ignore any poll that is bad for Republicans".

wilfra 14y ago

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.

Alex3917 14y ago
"He is a biased liberal and reading any of his commentary should be viewed through that lens." Are we reading the same blog? I've never seen him take sides on any issue.

arrrg 14y ago

Humans who are not biased probably do not exist. Or at least do not care or know about politics in the slightest. I think there is nothing wrong with that. That doesn't invalidate his work. I know too much about human biases to even try to claim that his do not influence his interpretations and work at all – I just don't think that's possible – but that is general and in all likelihood inevitable problem. I think it's pretty clear, however, that it's in his best interest to make accurate predictions, not partisan predictions. I do not think it's really helpful to start out with that question. It puts too much focus on what's actually important. Yeah, bias can be hard to detect, but a little bias does not make models useless and when there is a lot of bias you should actually be able to point at what's wrong with the model instead of having to resort to some diffuse claims of bias. Writing this made me think of Elisabeth Noelle-Neumann (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elisabeth_Noelle-Neumann http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elisabeth_Noelle-Neumann). I disagree with many of her views and I think it would be fair to call her biased after reading her most famous work (The Spiral of Silence), but I do respect her work. There is a difference.

nhebb 14y ago

> is there a Republican analog to Nate Silver? No, not directly. RealClearPoltics (http://www.realclearpolitics.com 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/ 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.

mkramlich 14y ago

Reminds me of the meme "reality has a well-known liberal bias". I don't know or suspect whether that's true or not. But I have noticed personally in life that whenever someone is both intelligent, educated, is compassionate/empathic and does long-term thinking, that person also seems to be "liberal", progressive or left-leaning, politics wise. Perhaps not always. But most of the time, based on my observations. I think if you have those traits but take away compassion/empathy, and focus more on short-term/short-range thinking, you're more likely to be "conservative", or right-leaning.

waterlesscloud 14y ago
What would you say about the tens of millions of Americans who are educated, religious, and give hundreds of millions of dollars to build schools, clinics, and missions around the world? Are they short-sighted or lacking compassion? I think this kind of binary political thinking is the most insidious thought virus we face. Far more dangerous than whether or not someone believes in evolution, because it separates us and makes us believe that the "others" have traits that they really don't have. It's awful.
- mkramlich 14y ago
  You write as if you've somehow refuted or contradicted my words, but you haven't. I recommend looking again, more closely, at what I said. I choose words carefully. But I do understand the idea that religious people can be compassionate and give money away. So can atheists. So can intelligent people. So can both more and less educated people. It's orthogonal. And I never cited religion. And I was speaking in general terms based on direct, personal observation. Also I for one do not engage in "binary" political thinking -- not when I'm actually thinking internally -- though it's often useful when speaking in order to average out details and identify patterns and then express them concisely in public conversation. And as an additional point, if by 'mission' you mean a religious mission, then I'd say that I don't consider that to be a good thing. It's a bad thing. It spreads superstition, fear, make believe, childish mental states, obedience to arbitrary authority, silly rituals and fuzzy irrational thinking. Yes it also teaches relaxing and addictive chants and tunes, and feel good phrases. And the good parts, anything dealing with peace, compassion, charity, with community interaction, can all be done without the negative that comes from the religious baggage attached to it. Also, like your complaint about binary thinking being a bad thing. I don't think education is a binary quality. You're not either educated or not. There are many intermediate degrees and shades of grey, and types. So while I do think someone can be somewhat educated and religious, I don't think they're extremely well educated or intelligent. At least not both. Otherwise one would see that that particular emperor wears no clothes. But of course this is just the conclusion reached by many of us, not all of us. To each his own.

spamizbad 14y ago

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 race prediction. Silver is politically liberal but he's a stats guy at heart. The republican equivalent would be Unskewed Polls http://unskewedpolls.com/ http://unskewedpolls.com/ which re-weights partisan affiliation of polls to match Rasmussen (The result: Romney is WAY ahead). It's author isn't a big stats guy and goes more off gut. This comparison isn't entirely fair though. Republican polsters and aggregators are probably private, working inside campaigns and not for a public news organization. You can be politically liberal or conservative and not have it directly spill into your work.

adestefan 14y ago
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.
- wtallis 14y ago
  While Rasmussen seems biased in the strict technical sense, it's otherwise relatively low-variance high-quality data, so the bias can be corrected for, leaving you with useful information.