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One thing that really bothers me: most of Nate Silver's supporters and detractors don't understand jack shit about his models. On the Democrat side of the tabl

One thing that really bothers me: most of Nate Silver's supporters and detractors don't understand jack shit about his models. On the Democrat side of the table, many treated 538 like a source of religious prophecy and source of comfort - when truth be told Nate is just a smart statistician who developed a model that's accurately predicted the outcomes of three elections (the first being the Hillary / Obama primary.) On the Republican side of the table, major trends in national and state-level polling data were ignored because pundits believed that the pollsters were oversampling Democrats when the truth is that the Democratic base has expanded since 2008. Other legitimate statisticians, like the University of Colorado, predicted a Romney win and obviously their models were wrong. Scientists, statisticians, economists, and engineers shouldn't be worshiped as sources of incontrovertible truth - they're just humans trying to do the best objective, accurate job that they can!

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SkyMarshal 14y ago
>Scientists, statisticians, economists, and engineers shouldn't be worshiped as sources of incontrovertible truth - they're just humans trying to do the best objective, accurate job that they can! True, but they're a big step in the direction of progressively less wrong [1] from the traditional alternative punditry and 'gut' analysis [2]. If I were a movie producer I'd buy the rights to Moneyball 2, script it about this election, and recast the gossiping scouting staff as all the blowhards [3] and bs artists [4]. Nate Silver, Andrew Tannenbaum [5], Drew Linzer [6], Sam Wang [7] and the other modelers deserve a lot of credit for helping the public cut through the bullshit. [1]: http://serendip.brynmawr.edu/sci_cult/lesswrong/lesswrong/ http://serendip.brynmawr.edu/sci_cult/lesswrong/lesswrong/ [2]: http://blogs.wsj.com/peggynoonan/2012/11/05/monday-morning/ http://blogs.wsj.com/peggynoonan/2012/11/05/monday-morning/ [3]: http://www.theatlanticwire.com/politics/2012/10/people-who-cant-do-math-are-so-mad-nate-silver/58460/ http://www.theatlanticwire.com/politics/2012/10/people-who-c... [4]: http://drudgereport.com http://drudgereport.com [5]: http://electoral-vote.com http://electoral-vote.com [6]: http://votamatic.org http://votamatic.org [7]: http://election.princeton.edu/ http://election.princeton.edu/
- Aaronontheweb 14y ago
  My point wasn't so much about rate of errors or cutting through the bullshit. My point is that it is thoroughly, truly annoying to see masses "smart" but still obviously ignorant people apply religious qualities to scientists and statisticians because the outcomes are either a source of divine comfort or blasphemy. Watch either of the "Go God Go" episodes of South Park if you want a more concrete example of the behavior I'm describing: http://www.southparkstudios.com/full-episodes/s10e12-go-god-go http://www.southparkstudios.com/full-episodes/s10e12-go-god-...

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SkyMarshal 14y ago

>Scientists, statisticians, economists, and engineers shouldn't be worshiped as sources of incontrovertible truth - they're just humans trying to do the best objective, accurate job that they can! True, but they're a big step in the direction of progressively less wrong [1] from the traditional alternative punditry and 'gut' analysis [2]. If I were a movie producer I'd buy the rights to Moneyball 2, script it about this election, and recast the gossiping scouting staff as all the blowhards [3] and bs artists [4]. Nate Silver, Andrew Tannenbaum [5], Drew Linzer [6], Sam Wang [7] and the other modelers deserve a lot of credit for helping the public cut through the bullshit. [1]: http://serendip.brynmawr.edu/sci_cult/lesswrong/lesswrong/ http://serendip.brynmawr.edu/sci_cult/lesswrong/lesswrong/ [2]: http://blogs.wsj.com/peggynoonan/2012/11/05/monday-morning/ http://blogs.wsj.com/peggynoonan/2012/11/05/monday-morning/ [3]: http://www.theatlanticwire.com/politics/2012/10/people-who-cant-do-math-are-so-mad-nate-silver/58460/ http://www.theatlanticwire.com/politics/2012/10/people-who-c... [4]: http://drudgereport.com http://drudgereport.com [5]: http://electoral-vote.com http://electoral-vote.com [6]: http://votamatic.org http://votamatic.org [7]: http://election.princeton.edu/ http://election.princeton.edu/

Aaronontheweb 14y ago
My point wasn't so much about rate of errors or cutting through the bullshit. My point is that it is thoroughly, truly annoying to see masses "smart" but still obviously ignorant people apply religious qualities to scientists and statisticians because the outcomes are either a source of divine comfort or blasphemy. Watch either of the "Go God Go" episodes of South Park if you want a more concrete example of the behavior I'm describing: http://www.southparkstudios.com/full-episodes/s10e12-go-god-go http://www.southparkstudios.com/full-episodes/s10e12-go-god-...