Discussion for article #228393
PredictionâŚSilver is going to burn outâŚ
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Silver is in major meltdown over Wang. Seriously, the guy is completely losing it!
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This âfeudâ is so bizarre. What the hell happened between these two?
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For statistical justice!
Seriously, though, I donât begrudge him acting like a prima donna about these things. Number-crunching is what he does, and I kind of admire how seriously he takes it. I also donât want any liberals lulling themselves into a false sense of security with Wangâs projections.
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âWhat is wrong with Nate the Skate?â
Self-consumed and a bully.
Jesus, give it a break, Nate. If Wangâs methodology is so wrong then you will have plenty of opportunity after the election to crow that you were right and if his methodology is spot on then you wonât have to eat as much crow.
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I donât get what peopleâs problem with Silver is over this. It sounds like Wangâs analysis doesnât jibe with anyone elseâs, and being seen in public with Silver would only give more attention to what he sees as a guy who is doing shoddy work.
I doubt heâd go out and have a beer with the unskewed polls guy either. I doubt Wang is being so blatantly political, but still Silver clearly thinks his methodology is ridiculous and heâs given a halfway decent explanation as to why.
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Wang has been right longer and more consistently than Silver. His methodology is transparent and invites criticism; Silverâs is not completely transparent.
I recommend you read Wangâs rebuttal. Silver is honestly coming off really petty.
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Iâm glad that Silver is making a big deal about debunking Wang. Wangâs election projection reminds me of Republicans unskewing polls in 2012. This is just the liberal version of it.
âŚno, seriously, read Wangâs explanation of his methodology. People may be using Wangâs projections and snapshots to that end, but there is nothing remotely similar about how he works and the Unskewed Polls guy; to suggest that there is grossly misrepresents his long history of work.
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Wang doesnât have an especially large body of work. Since 2004 heâs had some successes, but heâs also attempted to analyze fewer races as well.
Besides, weâre not talking about his body of work in any case, weâre talking about one very specific part of his methodology which Silver thinks is completely ridiculous.
I just donât see Silver overreacting right now. This is all pretty tame for a science nerd fight.
Oh, theyâve been politely bickering for years. The only thing new is the volume level.
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The problem here, and the thing thatâs really, really weird if this were a real science nerd slap fight is that heâs doing it through Twitter. If one set out to design a medium to be, in every possible way, utterly unsuited for the airing of a methodological dispute, it would be Twitter.
But it stops looking really, really weird if you look at it as a marketing gimmick, if you assume, that is, that heâs really confident in his prediction and thinks that provoking a fight with a âcompetitorâ thatâs vindicated on election day will drive traffic to his site and improve his aura of infallibility.
To my mind, itâs a pretty damn risky bet, given that his ââfundamentalsâ secret sauceâ is a great way to build a blind spot into a model if thereâs something really different about a particular race. If the Democratsâ new midterm GOTV plan bears fruit, he could end up looking like Gallup last cycle.
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I hate to resort to what my best friend at law school and I used to refer to as the All Purpose Polemic, But you donât know what what the hell youâre talking about.
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I thought Nat was gay. What does he have against Wang?
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It may have started with a dismissive statement or three on Twitter, but itâs gone to the blogs now in proper nerd manner.
This isnât even about the end result of the prediction, since Wangâs model will likely tighten as the volume of polling picks up toward the end of the election season. It may well be that all predictions, with different methodologies, are in line by the end.
But Wang is a clear outlier at this point in the game, and that means either his model is flawed or everyone elseâs is. Which is essentially the title of this article.
What an absolute babyâŚmaybe he should spend some time working on his lame website
I donât know if anyone noticed, but the generic ballot, which had swung to almost R +2 is now back to dead even. That is not consistent with either party making large gains. I think itâs fair to say the odds on Râs taking the Senate are about even, so I really canât choose either Wang or Silver as being more accurate right now.
Thanks, I thought I was going to have to say it. 