There’s very little checking done of the accuracy of the prediction of pundits, which is a major reason I avoid even hearing what they have to say. One exception to this rule is Nate Silver and his crew at FiveThirtyEight.com. They’ve just published an analysis of as many of their predictions as possible. It’s worth…
Whether it’s about elections or hurricane predictions, neither the media nor the public understand probability. I suspect this is because we are evolutionarily programmed to look for certainty. Certainty leads to decisive action. It is sometimes said in military circles that a bad decision is often better than no decision. But it’s easy to be…
I know headline writers need their splashy headlines, but as the media is filled with word of a stunning upset, we should remember the number of times that one candidate or the other was “destroyed” or “finished,” or the election was declared “over.” A poll takes a snapshot of part of the electorate which is…
We like meaning and connections, and we’ll sometimes find them even when they’re not there. People who understand this can deceive you. The Improbability Principle from Neuroblogica is a very good summary of this.
Jonathan Last defends Nate Silver, but it’s really just explaining what “probability” means. HT: Dispatches.
I may be hopelessly naive in the matter of probability, though it is the one area of math that I have actually studied, but I am simply not terribly impressed with probability arguments. That’s probably (!) a major reason why I’m not impressed with intelligent design (ID). I’m particularly not impressed with probabilities calculated for…
