Nate Silver
Nate Silver
Nathaniel Read "Nate" Silveris an American statistician and writer who analyzes baseballand elections. He is currently the editor-in-chief of ESPN's FiveThirtyEight blog and a Special Correspondent for ABC News. Silver first gained public recognition for developing PECOTA, a system for forecasting the performance and career development of Major League Baseball players, which he sold to and then managed for Baseball Prospectus from 2003 to 2009...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionJournalist
Date of Birth13 January 1978
CityEast Lansing, MI
CountryUnited States of America
Almost everyone's instinct is to be overconfident and read way too much into a hot or cold streak.
You can build a statistical model and that's all well and good, but if you're dealing with a new type of financial instrument, for example, or a new type of situation - then the choices you're making are pretty arbitrary in a lot of respects.
When you get into statistical analysis, you don't really expect to achieve fame. Or to become an Internet meme. Or be parodied by 'The Onion' - or be the subject of a cartoon in 'The New Yorker.' I guess I'm kind of an outlier there.
Every day, three times per second, we produce the equivalent of the amount of data that the Library of Congress has in its entire print collection, right? But most of it is like cat videos on YouTube or 13-year-olds exchanging text messages about the next Twilight movie.
I love South American food, and I haven't really been down there. I really need a vacation.
I have the same friends and the same bad habits.
Race is still the No. 1 determinant in every election.
If you're keeping yourself in the bubble and only looking at your own data or only watching the TV that fits your agenda then it gets boring.
A lot of news is just entertainment masquerading as news.
A lot of journalism wants to have what they call objectivity without them having a commitment to pursuing the truth, but that doesn't work. Objectivity requires belief in and a commitment toward pursuing the truth - having an object outside of our personal point of view.
Every four years in the presidential election, some new precedent is broken.
I view my role now as providing more of a macro-level skepticism, rather than saying this poll is good or this poll is evil.
I've become invested with this symbolic power. It really does transcend what I'm actually doing and what I actually deserve.
In baseball you have terrific data and you can be a lot more creative with it.