Nate Silver is the founder of FiveThirtyEight and the author of The Signal and the Noise.

“I know in a perfectly rational world, if you make an 80/20 prediction, people should know that not only will this prediction not be right all the time, but you did something wrong if it’s never wrong. The 20% underdog should come through sometimes. People in sports understand that sometimes a 15 seed beats a 2 seed in the NCAA tournament. That’s much harder to explain to people in politics.”

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Show Notes:

@NateSilver538

fivethirtyeight.com

Silver on Longform

[2:00] FiveThirtyEight Podcasts

[2:00] "Why The Dean Scream Sounded So Different On TV" (Jody Avirgan, Clare Malone • FiveThirtyEight)

[10:00] The Burrito Bracket

[12:00] Silver’s Daily Kos Archive

[19:00] The Signal and the Noise: Why So Many Predictions Fail—but Some Don’t (Penguin Books • 2012)

[19:00] "FiveThirtyEight’s 2012 Forecast" (New York Times • Nov 2012)

[45:00] "Donald Trump Is the World’s Greatest Troll" (FiveThirtyEight • Jul 2015)

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