While Oscar fans spent Monday checking their pools to see if they picked more winners than their friends, I was wondering whether statistics experts did a good job forecasting the results. [cont.] Harry Enten, The Guardian Read more »
The Oscars Number Crunchers
… After quantitative predictions did well in forecasting the U.S. presidential election last November, many similar ones have sprung up around the annual film awards ceremony. Sarah Sluis, assistant staff editor at Film Journal International, thinks these forecasts have appeared on the scene because this year’s race is relatively unpredictable. […] Read more »
Oscar Predictions, Election-Style
Twice before, in 2009 and 2011, I sought to predict the Academy Award winners in six major categories based on a mix of statistical factors. My track record? Nine correct picks in 12 tries, for a 75 percent success rate. Not bad, but also not good enough to suggest that […] Read more »
Dick Morris exits Fox News: even he might have predicted this correctly
I’m not a big one for schadenfreude but I confess to feeling a little frisson on hearing the news that Dick Morris was not getting his contract renewed by Fox News. It’s not that I wish Morris ill tidings; it’s that I want pundits to be held accountable for their […] Read more »
Bayesian Statistics and what Nate Silver Gets Wrong
… It is perfectly reasonable for [Nate] Silver to prefer the Bayesian approach—the field has remained split for nearly a century, with each side having its own arguments, innovations, and work-arounds—but the case for preferring Bayes to Fisher is far weaker than Silver lets on, and there is no reason […] Read more »
Transcript of Nate Silver’s ‘Ask Me Anything’ on Reddit
Nate Silver of FiveThirtyEight took questions Tuesday on the popular social news site Reddit’s “Ask Me Anything” section. What follows is an edited transcript, with the questions and answers sorted into several subject areas. [cont.] New York Times Read more »