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I expect a lot of "opinion" journalists to pile on Silver, but this piece strikes me as particularly tone deaf. > Is numeracy really what American public disco

I expect a lot of "opinion" journalists to pile on Silver, but this piece strikes me as particularly tone deaf. > Is numeracy really what American public discourse most urgently lacks? It ranks pretty high. > Like Ezra Klein, whom he admires, Nate Silver had made a success out of an escape into diffidence. What is it about conviction that frightens these people? It's not conviction that's frightening, it's conviction backed by ignorance.

maxerickson 13y ago
Since an open society stands or falls on the quality of its citizens’ opinions, the refinement of their opinions, and more generally of the process of opinion-formation, is a primary activity of its intellectuals and its journalists. It's hard to read that in a friendly manner, it sounds like it would be so awful to have people thinking for themselves. I think it is maybe a little optimistic, but an 'open society' probably works better the closer you get to discarding the idea that some people are intellectuals. (I don't mean that as a rejection of expertise, but someone with a deep understanding of the dynamics of region (or whatever) is really only better positioned to explain the probable consequences of an action, their expertise doesn't really give them more standing to choose what action is best)
mikepilla 13y ago
I agree this is tone deaf, mostly. And certainly journalists have room for improvement in understanding data. However, I certainly agree with this statement: >Neutrality is an evasion of responsibility, unless everything is like sports. More data can also mean more noise. More data can also mean implying more causation where none exists. And the world isn't a giant game with sterile constraints and static rules.
- cruise02 13y ago
  "It's just my opinion" strikes me as the larger evasion of responsibility here. There's nothing irresponsible about reporting the facts of a story so that people can make informed decisions. > More data can also mean more noise. Nate Silver wrote a book titled "The Signal and the Noise." I'm sure he's aware of the danger. Data Analysis (Data Science, whatever you want to call it) is all about turning data into information. Reducing noise.
  - mikepilla 13y ago
    Forget about Silver for a moment. What’s more dangerous, the bias in an opinion page or bias in a feature article masquerading as neutral fact? More data, more samples, can produce more spurious relationships, whatever statistical massaging is applied. Given more Noise, there’s more opportunity to inject bias in finding your Signal. Journalists shouldn’t pretend their data doesn’t stink because they just figured out how to get Excel to crap out regression results.
    - cruise02 13y ago
      Who is suggesting they should?
j2kun 13y ago
It's conviction backed by ignorance backed by unwillingness to fix the ignorance backed by mathematical illiteracy that prevents them from fixing their ignorance. Oh yeah, backed by not owning up to their convictions when someone without all their deficiencies proves them wrong with fact (or at least strong evidence).

maxerickson 13y ago

Since an open society stands or falls on the quality of its citizens’ opinions, the refinement of their opinions, and more generally of the process of opinion-formation, is a primary activity of its intellectuals and its journalists. It's hard to read that in a friendly manner, it sounds like it would be so awful to have people thinking for themselves. I think it is maybe a little optimistic, but an 'open society' probably works better the closer you get to discarding the idea that some people are intellectuals. (I don't mean that as a rejection of expertise, but someone with a deep understanding of the dynamics of region (or whatever) is really only better positioned to explain the probable consequences of an action, their expertise doesn't really give them more standing to choose what action is best)

mikepilla 13y ago

I agree this is tone deaf, mostly. And certainly journalists have room for improvement in understanding data. However, I certainly agree with this statement: >Neutrality is an evasion of responsibility, unless everything is like sports. More data can also mean more noise. More data can also mean implying more causation where none exists. And the world isn't a giant game with sterile constraints and static rules.

cruise02 13y ago
"It's just my opinion" strikes me as the larger evasion of responsibility here. There's nothing irresponsible about reporting the facts of a story so that people can make informed decisions. > More data can also mean more noise. Nate Silver wrote a book titled "The Signal and the Noise." I'm sure he's aware of the danger. Data Analysis (Data Science, whatever you want to call it) is all about turning data into information. Reducing noise.
- mikepilla 13y ago
  Forget about Silver for a moment. What’s more dangerous, the bias in an opinion page or bias in a feature article masquerading as neutral fact? More data, more samples, can produce more spurious relationships, whatever statistical massaging is applied. Given more Noise, there’s more opportunity to inject bias in finding your Signal. Journalists shouldn’t pretend their data doesn’t stink because they just figured out how to get Excel to crap out regression results.
  - cruise02 13y ago
    Who is suggesting they should?

j2kun 13y ago

It's conviction backed by ignorance backed by unwillingness to fix the ignorance backed by mathematical illiteracy that prevents them from fixing their ignorance. Oh yeah, backed by not owning up to their convictions when someone without all their deficiencies proves them wrong with fact (or at least strong evidence).