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To ‘Predict’ Nate Silver’s Future, Look to the More Enlightened Sports World
Re: Nate Silver, most amusing thing about this election is watching political pundits make sports fans look like PhD mathematicians,” tweeted ESPN basketball writer John Hollinger earlier this week.
Hollinger was referring to the mainstream media’s largely ignorant criticisms of Nate Silver, the New York Times writer who uses polls and other information to assign probabilities to political outcomes, including, most prominently, the presidential election. Earlier in the day, Politico’s Dylan Byers argued that because Silver had given Barack Obama nearly three-in-four odds, then if Mitt Romney prevails, Silver will not really be worth paying attention to anymore: “should Mitt Romney win on Nov. 6,” Byers wrote, “it’s difficult to see how people can continue to put faith in the predictions of someone who has never given that candidate anything higher than a 41 percent chance.” (Byers is actually wrong on this fact as well: one year ago, Silver gave Romney a 60 percent chance should 2012’s GDP grow two percent, which was last quarter’s annualized rate. But as we’ll see, that’s beside the point.) Byers also cited pundits like Joe Scarborough and David Brooks disparaging Silver after similarly misunderstanding the concept of probabilities.
http://www.tnr.com/blog/plank/109495/%E2%80%98predict-nate-silver%E2%80%99s-future-look-the-more-enlightened-sports-world
Hollinger was referring to the mainstream media’s largely ignorant criticisms of Nate Silver, the New York Times writer who uses polls and other information to assign probabilities to political outcomes, including, most prominently, the presidential election. Earlier in the day, Politico’s Dylan Byers argued that because Silver had given Barack Obama nearly three-in-four odds, then if Mitt Romney prevails, Silver will not really be worth paying attention to anymore: “should Mitt Romney win on Nov. 6,” Byers wrote, “it’s difficult to see how people can continue to put faith in the predictions of someone who has never given that candidate anything higher than a 41 percent chance.” (Byers is actually wrong on this fact as well: one year ago, Silver gave Romney a 60 percent chance should 2012’s GDP grow two percent, which was last quarter’s annualized rate. But as we’ll see, that’s beside the point.) Byers also cited pundits like Joe Scarborough and David Brooks disparaging Silver after similarly misunderstanding the concept of probabilities.
http://www.tnr.com/blog/plank/109495/%E2%80%98predict-nate-silver%E2%80%99s-future-look-the-more-enlightened-sports-world
