>Scientists, statisticians, economists, and engineers shouldn't be worshiped as sources of incontrovertible truth - they're just humans trying to do the best ob

>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/