3 ms·

Let's be honest though, the number of likely outcomes was low enough that simply picking the correct one isn't too impressive. Edit: I meant to say that the pr

Let's be honest though, the number of likely outcomes was low enough that simply picking the correct one isn't too impressive. Edit: I meant to say that the prediction itself was unspectacular, however I respect the meticulous-ness of his process.

pfisch 14y ago
What the hell are you talking about? If you actually placed bets by nate silver you could make quite a lot of money. The number of outcomes is very high on a parlay bet like this.
- hayksaakian 14y ago
  What I mean is that if you put 100 random people and a room, and explain the likely outcomes to them, its reasonable to expect that each of those outcomes is chose at least once. There was not anything wildly unexpected that happened, and therefore his predictions being correct seems unspectacular.
  - mkr-hn 14y ago
    Gaining traction with unspectacular predictions in the spectacle of politics is spectacular.
- fl3tch 14y ago
  One way to look at is that there were only about 6 states that could go either way, so he picked 6/6.
  - jlgreco 14y ago
    In other words he, with confidence, called a 1 out of 2^6 coin toss... That either takes massive balls, or he was actually on to something.
achompas 14y ago
I don't know what you mean by this. Are you referring to "Obama wins" as a potential coin flip? Because Silver's prediction was more nuanced than that. Are you talking about his predictions for the 50 states, which represented a potential (albeit naive) 2^50 combinations? Because he called some very close states, including a Florida election that he forecasted as an Obama victory by hundredths of a percent. Or are you just trolling?
- hayksaakian 14y ago
  The only highly uncertain states were Ohio, Virginia, and Florida. (Based on the time before results started coming in). So really there were 9 safe predictions, having picked one of them does not make the OP's story spectacular.
  - seanalltogether 14y ago
    And yet no serious publications were willing to admit this info. I think the biggest value of fivethirtyeight has been to cut through all the partisan and non-committal predictions coming from the media and rest of the web.
  - achompas 14y ago
    2^3 == 8 So there's the pundit response or the data response. The pundit response: "this election is a toss-up!" In which case we'll just reject your assertion outright. No one really buys the pundit response, though! Okay, the data response to your assertion: pollster.com kind of rejects this if you scroll right on the top row of charts.[0] Colorado, Iowa, Nevada, New Hampshire, and North Carolina all polled closely, bumping us to 2^8 = 256 possible outcomes. This ignores the absurd accuracy of Silver's predictions. My favorite is his prediction for Florida: https://twitter.com/fivethirtyeight/status/265835769934012416 https://twitter.com/fivethirtyeight/status/26583576993401241... Florida sat at 49.8% to 49.4% for the majority of the night until it recently opened up to a chasm-sized 49.9/49.2 for Obama. Silver had it at 49.79/49.72 for Obama. So...yeah. If you look at his predictions it's not just monkeys on a typewriter. His results are incredibly accurate from a discrete or a continuous point of view. [0] http://elections.huffingtonpost.com/pollster#2012-presidential-race http://elections.huffingtonpost.com/pollster#2012-presidenti...
mayneack 14y ago
But he won as compared to all the pure poll averages. One presumes that weighting of polls is the biggest factor in his model now over others, so that sounds pretty good to me.
keypusher 14y ago
He has consistently predicted election results throughout his career based on some of the most extensive polling analysis of anyone out there. Alleging that he just made a couple lucky guesses is ridiculous.
chaz 14y ago
The number of possible outcomes is not the same as the probabilities of those outcomes. If I have a weighted coin that shows heads 90% of the time, there are two possible outcomes, but I'm happy to bet you $1 heads each time we flip the coin. One successful or unsuccessful outcome is not evidence that the model works or doesn't work, but this is how probabilities work.

pfisch 14y ago

What the hell are you talking about? If you actually placed bets by nate silver you could make quite a lot of money. The number of outcomes is very high on a parlay bet like this.

hayksaakian 14y ago
What I mean is that if you put 100 random people and a room, and explain the likely outcomes to them, its reasonable to expect that each of those outcomes is chose at least once. There was not anything wildly unexpected that happened, and therefore his predictions being correct seems unspectacular.
- mkr-hn 14y ago
  Gaining traction with unspectacular predictions in the spectacle of politics is spectacular.
fl3tch 14y ago
One way to look at is that there were only about 6 states that could go either way, so he picked 6/6.
- jlgreco 14y ago
  In other words he, with confidence, called a 1 out of 2^6 coin toss... That either takes massive balls, or he was actually on to something.

achompas 14y ago

I don't know what you mean by this. Are you referring to "Obama wins" as a potential coin flip? Because Silver's prediction was more nuanced than that. Are you talking about his predictions for the 50 states, which represented a potential (albeit naive) 2^50 combinations? Because he called some very close states, including a Florida election that he forecasted as an Obama victory by hundredths of a percent. Or are you just trolling?

hayksaakian 14y ago
The only highly uncertain states were Ohio, Virginia, and Florida. (Based on the time before results started coming in). So really there were 9 safe predictions, having picked one of them does not make the OP's story spectacular.
- seanalltogether 14y ago
  And yet no serious publications were willing to admit this info. I think the biggest value of fivethirtyeight has been to cut through all the partisan and non-committal predictions coming from the media and rest of the web.
- achompas 14y ago
  2^3 == 8 So there's the pundit response or the data response. The pundit response: "this election is a toss-up!" In which case we'll just reject your assertion outright. No one really buys the pundit response, though! Okay, the data response to your assertion: pollster.com kind of rejects this if you scroll right on the top row of charts.[0] Colorado, Iowa, Nevada, New Hampshire, and North Carolina all polled closely, bumping us to 2^8 = 256 possible outcomes. This ignores the absurd accuracy of Silver's predictions. My favorite is his prediction for Florida: https://twitter.com/fivethirtyeight/status/265835769934012416 https://twitter.com/fivethirtyeight/status/26583576993401241... Florida sat at 49.8% to 49.4% for the majority of the night until it recently opened up to a chasm-sized 49.9/49.2 for Obama. Silver had it at 49.79/49.72 for Obama. So...yeah. If you look at his predictions it's not just monkeys on a typewriter. His results are incredibly accurate from a discrete or a continuous point of view. [0] http://elections.huffingtonpost.com/pollster#2012-presidential-race http://elections.huffingtonpost.com/pollster#2012-presidenti...

mayneack 14y ago

But he won as compared to all the pure poll averages. One presumes that weighting of polls is the biggest factor in his model now over others, so that sounds pretty good to me.

keypusher 14y ago

He has consistently predicted election results throughout his career based on some of the most extensive polling analysis of anyone out there. Alleging that he just made a couple lucky guesses is ridiculous.

chaz 14y ago

The number of possible outcomes is not the same as the probabilities of those outcomes. If I have a weighted coin that shows heads 90% of the time, there are two possible outcomes, but I'm happy to bet you $1 heads each time we flip the coin. One successful or unsuccessful outcome is not evidence that the model works or doesn't work, but this is how probabilities work.