>The amusing part though is that he assumes that Nate Silver isn't an expert at this point. I've been following 538 since before 2008, and the quality of analys

>The amusing part though is that he assumes that Nate Silver isn't an expert at this point. I've been following 538 since before 2008, and the quality of analysis from a non-statistical level was consistently far higher than almost any other publication (except perhaps the Economist). Krugman isn't disagreeing that Silver is good at political analysis. In fact, Krugman has been a huge supporter of Silver and his work, because (at least to my eyes) Krugman identifies with him. Keep reading the post. "In that case, he pitted his statistical approach against campaign-narrative pundits, who turned out to know approximately nothing. What he seems to have concluded is that there are no experts anywhere, that a smart data analyst can and should ignore all that. But not all fields are like that — in fact, even political analysis isn’t like that, if you talk to political scientists instead of political reporters." If you've read the new 538, there are a great deal of non-political analysis stories - covering, for example, climatology and economics - that just have it all wrong, for the very reasons Krugman is talking about. Krugman is not the only one saying this. >Krugman hit an impressive low in January with this column - a rather vapid dismissal of the Silk Road as (and I quote) "libertarian derp", devoid of any actual analysis or supporting argument That's not a column, it's a blog post. Krugman posts lots of unserious stuff on his blog, like his undying love for Arcade Fire. He's spent plenty of other posts giving as much thought he as a Keynesian who readily admits he's not technologically saavy to Bitcoin-related matters should. If you want serious analysis, read his economics-related posts. If you care about what Krugman the man feels about something (and I don't know why you should, unless you know him personally), read the others.