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>His results are also completely unverifiable. Let's say his final prediction is 80-20 in favor of one candidate, but the other candidate wins. Well, his model
by smackfu 14y ago
>His results are also completely unverifiable. Let's say his final prediction is 80-20 in favor of one candidate, but the other candidate wins. Well, his model did say that'll happen one time in five, so you can't really criticize it.
That's a good point. He is using percentage chances everywhere but then running only one trial (election).
- defen 14y agoClearly a wager is the way to solve this problem (Bayesian interpretation of probability). Is it legal to gamble on an election result? They could use the following payouts - J represents a regular journalist using 50/50 odds, N represents Nate Silver using 75/25 Obama/Romney: Romney win: J: +1000 N: -1000 Obama win: J: -600 N: +600 With those payouts each side has an expected value of +200 dollars for this wager, using the specified odds they believe to be true, so both should be willing to take it.
- Evbn 14y agoImtrade and trade sports do this. It is also trivial to simulate with play money over many elections and races.
- halostatue 14y agoThis is, from my recollection, an incorrect assessment of Silver’s methodology. He runs (continuous?) Monte Carlo simulations over his inputs, and when he says that there's an 80-20 chance in favour of candidate O, he's saying that 80% of the simulations resulted in a win for candidate O, not candidate R.