Fascinating as usual.
This is the guy that pretty much predicted the presidential election, right? Is that all he is known for? Im curious because Im not sure how much stock to put into his opinion. Is he worth following or no? This is Hubski so I trust you guys can give me a straight answer.
Before the Presidential election he was also pretty well known for statistical analysis of sports. He writes well and his analysis is usually pretty good. He also makes it clear that he isn't "predicting" outcomes. He's reporting a statistical analysis which sometimes doesn't match reality so he's that rare commodity an "honest" statistician.
Anyway, read the article. His grasp of American politics shines through, and he's a statistical genius. And when the guy who is known for always knowing what's going to happen cautions against being certain about what's going to happen, that carries weight.This is the guy that pretty much predicted the presidential election, right?
You're doing him a bit of a disservice, here. From Wikipedia--The accuracy of his November 2008 presidential election predictions—he correctly predicted the winner of 49 of the 50 states—won Silver further attention and commendation. The only state he missed was Indiana, which went for Barack Obama by one percentage point. He correctly predicted the winner of all 35 U.S. Senate races that year.
In the 2012 United States presidential election between Barack Obama and Mitt Romney, he correctly predicted the winner of all 50 states and the District of Columbia.[11] That same year, Silver's predictions of U.S. Senate races were correct in 31 of 33 states; he predicted Republican victory in North Dakota and Montana, where Democrats won.
Yeah I knew most of that, but I guess what I'm asking is how much stock should I put into his opinion if all he does is look at pools and predict elections - does he have a good track record with things other then elections? Im not sure how much stats can tell us about things like foreign policy and random happenings in domestic policy, so im not sure if he is worth reading when its not an election year.
Well, actually, I first started reading him back in the Baseball Prospectus days, because that sort of thing is one of my hobbies. He did things like this, which baseballreference, the premier statistics website, uses on every single player page. I know you meant politically, but still. And I'm operating under the assumption that at this point you've read the article and thus know that a significant part of it, and a significant part of the shutdown in general, deals with who will win the upcoming House elections -- something Silver is perhaps more qualified to talk about than anyone.does he have a good track record with things other then elections?