WIRED - "In Defense of Nate Silver, Election Pollsters, and Statistical Predictions"

[TomCADem]

Nice article discussing the war between quants and mainstream political pundits. Reminds me of Moneyball.

http://www.wired.com/opinion/2012/11/why-predictions-and-statistical-models-are-necessary-and-good-for-democracy/

Nate Silver analyzes poll data on the influential FiveThiryEight blog at the New York Times. He crunches polls and other data in an electoral statistical model, and he claims that his work is guided by math, not left or right politics. Yet he’s become a whipping boy as election day approaches. His crime? Publishing the results of statistical models that predict President Obama has a 73.6 percent chance of defeating the Republican challenger, Mitt Romney.

“The pollsters tell us what’s happening now,” conservative columnist David Brooks told Politico, trashing Silver. “When they start projecting, they’re getting into silly land.” In the same article, MSNBC’s Joe Scarborough added, “And anybody that thinks that this race is anything but a tossup right now is such an ideologue, they should be kept away from typewriters, computers, laptops, and microphones for the next 10 days – because they’re jokes.”

David Brooks is mistaken and Joe Scarborough is wrong. Because while pollsters can’t project, statistical models can, and do … and they do some predictions very well.

We rely on statistical models for many decisions every single day, including, crucially: weather, medicine, and pretty much any complex system in which there’s an element of uncertainty to the outcome. In fact, these are the same methods by which scientists could tell Hurricane Sandy was about to hit the United States many days in advance.

[NewJeffCT]

1. Didn't he predict the Republican house takeover

in 2010? Were Joe & David calling him out then, too?

[ItsTheMediaStupid]

2. Great read - and credible to RW and Moderate readers, b/c it's Wired

Wired is not left leaning at all. It's mostly apolitical and maybe even has a little RW slant.

[MADem]

3. David Brooks....how could anyone forget his eight years of BushCo asskissing?

And Joe "Dead Woman In His Office" Scarborough, acolyte of Newt Gingrich, a guy who managed to translate the shortest period of time in Congress possible into a media career, despite his piggy eyes?

What's the upside of listening to these people? Noting their views? Paying ANY attention to them? They're carrying the waters of bitter, desperate, GOP desperation!

Nate Silver isn't a Democrat, not even close to a Democrat--that should fuck up their logic...but it doesn't. http://www.dailykos.com/story/2012/10/31/1152942/-Can-we-trust-Nate-Silver