Re:Why we should care about the Nate Silver vs. Nassim Taleb...
by leereeves on Tuesday December 18, 2018 @01:48PM
(#18709322)
That's not the whole picture. Before he learned to be more careful, Silver was calling Trump a troll, doomed to fail, who wasn't even trying to win.
https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/donald-trump-is-winning...
https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/donald-trump-is-the-wor...
Re:Why we should care about the Nate Silver vs. Nassim Taleb...
by scott_s on Tuesday December 18, 2018 @01:51PM
(#18709353)
Yup, and after that, he issued a complete mea culpa and made it a point to look at the actual data.
Re:Why we should care about the Nate Silver vs. Nassim Taleb...
by leereeves on Tuesday December 18, 2018 @02:06PM
(#18709510)
Yes, and he admitted to misleading with fake math:
> But it’s not how it worked for those skeptical forecasts about Trump’s chance of becoming the Republican nominee. Despite the lack of a model, we put his chances in percentage terms on a number of occasions.
So it would be more accurate to say that he was careful during the second half of the election, after making significant mistakes (both mathematical and ethical) during the first half.
Re:Why we should care about the Nate Silver vs. Nassim Taleb...
by VintageCool on Wednesday December 19, 2018 @09:39PM
(#18722066)
By "first half" you mean before Iowa, and by "second half" you mean after Iowa.
I also listen to their politics podcast, and they constantly talk about how to prevent people from rounding up an 80% chance to a 100% chance. One change they made this cycle was to try say 4 out-of 5 chance (which is mathematically the same) to convey both the lack of precision and to make it more intuitive. I think it helps. Personally, when I talked to people about election outcomes, I phrased it as "Based on what I know, I will be surprised-but-not-shocked if x happens, and shocked if y happens" to differentiate between, say, a 20% chance and a 1% chance.