>Many of the issues that we debate are not issues of fact but issues of value. There is no numerical answer to the question of whether men should be allowed to

>Many of the issues that we debate are not issues of fact but issues of value. There is no numerical answer to the question of whether men should be allowed to marry men, and the question of whether the government should help the weak, and the question of whether we should intervene against genocide. And so the intimidation by quantification practiced by Silver and the other data mullahs must be resisted. This writer makes some good points, but I don't think Silver is attempting to use statistical analysis to answer these questions. Silver's point about opinion journalism is one about bad incentives-- those people are rewarded for attracting attention, not for being accurate or even thoughtful. He's attacking the George Wills of the world for saying things like "Romney will win because Americans have realized that blah blah blah" when all the available polling data indicated a landslide win for Obama. Of course there is room for opinions and certainly an appetite for it, but the problem for the New Republic is that the authority bestowed upon "publications" is rapidly eroding. This obviously hasn't been helped by their decisions to compete with the Buzzfeeds of the world in the race to the bottom for pageviews. Now that anyone can say anything in public, the fact that the New Republic has decided to employ you no longer makes your opinion automatically worthy of consideration.