Nate Silver - Statistician HARDtalk


Nate Silver - Statistician

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world's busiest ports. You're watching BBC News. Now, it's time

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for Hardtalk. Welcome to HARDtalk. He is seen as a political

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astrologer with an uncanny ability to get it right. His prediction of

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the US presidential election result last year was spot on when most

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pundits were saying the race was too close to call. No wonder then

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that Nate Silver is being credited with re-shaping the art and science

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of political forecasting. But has he robbed electoral campaigns of

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their substance by reducing them to mere statistics and number-

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Nate Silver welcome. When it comes to elections, what is the point of

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prediction. Why not wait and see why people vote? People like to

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prepare for the future. The word for custom means planning under

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conditions of uncertainty. Trying to plan who the next president

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might be, for your personal life or for investing. Good information

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instead of the bad information you may get from the media. Even if it

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is a prediction as late as before an election result, what is some

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point of that? People cannot really make plans. There is a lot of horse

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race coverage in the States. Some people follow it like they may

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follow sport. The coverage is often poor when exaggerate how dynamic

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the horse race is. They claim the candidate behind welcome back and

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often they will not. They are not looking what the voters are telling

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them. They are superimposing the pundits's viewpoint on the

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information. We try to do this and we want to be accurate and truthful

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and strive to be more scientific with projections. Your predictions

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consist of three parts, dynamic modelling, data analysis and human

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judgement. Most people would say you have proved yourself on the

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first two. How good is your human judgement? She would have to talk

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to my friends and partners. What you think about your human

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judgement, due are famous for these computer models? A lot of people

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are very enamoured with this idea you can make a prediction based on

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your gut feeling. The evidence shows and a lot of feelings that

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gut feelings are not very accurate most of the time. Special when it

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comes to estimating probabilities, we do not really know how the maths

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works very well. Elgar often leads us astray. You do except it human

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judgement forms an important part of forecasting and predictions. It

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is messy? Has people analyse more different factors, it is messy.

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Whether that judgement, especially if it comes from a pundit that is

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out of touch with what voters think, and they are going to cocktail

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parties at Georgetown and serving other A-League friends, the chatter

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they here, may not be very useful. But if they hear from the campaigns

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noise and to listen to put that as providing valuable insight and

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information. Sometimes, sticking with simple things like poles that

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give us the voters the chance to express themselves to wreck there

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is a better approach. You process statistics and make models and

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predictions, when you hear what somebody li?I ? somebody liitish

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pollsters said he found that you guv, he applauds you and says you

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are brilliant at taking a lot of data, understanding it, he says

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without opinion polls and surveys they would be no Nate Silver. You

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did well because the polls did well. If you have taken every just of

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those polls you would have reached the same conclusion? I could have

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done that. Anybody could. But you get all this attention? They is

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because in politics the one-eyed man is the king in the land of the

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blind. The coverage is so poor a lot of the time. You have to sell

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newspapers and television programmes to say it will be a

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close race. You want to appear unbiased. Obviously, people

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involved in politics directly were trying to spin a narrative of how

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the party may win, a lot of inaccurate information. When he

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sees the did well because the polls were good and you manage to key in

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is that a key point that anybody could have done it. I said before

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the election, I would get too much attention of Barack Obama 1 and too

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much blame if Mitt Romney won. I look at probabilities, there is a

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margin of error with polls. We look at how accurate polling has been.

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You have many Poles from many different states which can increase

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the accuracy. That can influence whether you place a bet. We do not

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know what is going to happen, it is about Wayne information and data

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within the context of uncertainty. Did you generate any date yourself?

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Were each generate data with the models. Do you actually bring in

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fresh data yourself? I am not a pollster. You're likely lead on the

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work of opinion polls? The use economic data and a judgement as

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well in a review of the empirical scientist. I am very widely read.

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We do not rely on spin from campaigns. We do not rely on

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conventional wisdom which is not worth much in Washington DC. We

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rely on poles which reflect what individual people say. Polls that

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go out and interview action will voters and what they think about

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the election. As Michael Gerson a prominent member of the Republican

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establishment, an aide to George bush said, elections are not a

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mathematical equation? These are the people that thought Mitt Romney

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would win. That may be the case, there. Is your approach trivialises

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politics. It's trivialises their ability to spin and confuse people.

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They have an interest in a site like mine which takes the view from

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data and best practices. They were proven wrong last November. Michael

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Gerson makes the point. Why should we be listening to him? He is a

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senior member of the bush establishment. Why is that a

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credential? Used to measure public opinion. The measure what people

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think and how voters may behave. build models based on polling data

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and economic data. To discuss what forms public opinion. As the

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election came to a close, we talked to Nate Silver's statistical model,

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there was not much about social mobility and debt. He said your

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approach was devoid of substance and trivialises politics.

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approach is to write a better version of the horse race coverage

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we see in the United States media every day. It should not be

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difficult to look at the polls and take an average of them and see who

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is head. And why do not we trust parties since to talk about the war

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if they cannot get basic facts right. Adding up one converses the

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other. I'm not sure why we should listen to sum up like that on

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complex issues. Because he is a Republican? Because he is wrong. I

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think he's deluded about what reality is. His biases have

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overcome his ability to see the polls. I am biased? Are you vised?

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They everyone is biased. They historian Kim Stanley is accusing

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you of predicting a win and making him look like a winner, and it is

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your goal to create, convincing Obama will win because he is a

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winner. I am telling you what Tim Stanley says. If you take two

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people are not credible and take the arguments and ignore lots of

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other people in the field that think highly of my research. It

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makes for better TV. I was many same that. Looking at data from

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other interviews to create better ratings for this show what type of

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journalistic values are those. putting up to that Michael Gerson

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is being partisan. I think he is wrong. He would say he has a fair

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point to make. He is saying what you do makes elections devoid of

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elections by reducing them to a mathematical equation. We have gone

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through that. Do you worry that even if you if you are not being a

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vet the partisan that he might be used as a political tall? A thing

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the media coverage influences the way people can vote and behave. We

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are trying to use simple models that take poll's as direct measures

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of public opinion and take them back to the public domain. I do not

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like the business of politics, I do not live in Washington. The goal is

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to be to inform the public. Does it worry you that Barack Obama said at

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a dinner in March this year there are some one very special in my

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life who is missing who always has my back and stands with me no

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matter what the matter how dark things seem, my rock, my foundation,

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thank you Nate Silver. That was a joke. So he just said it as a joke.

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That is the number that is the dinner where he makes a number of

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jokes. His is on the record that you are a democrat. Do you support

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Barack Obama. I'm am on the centre- left in the US. The idea that

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people in politics should not have political views is ridiculous. I

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say that is my subject of a vantage-point, but I'm looking at

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an object of world we all share. Can I make accurate judgements

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about that world. By making verifiable predictions and claims

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that are not the biggest to be inscrutable, you can test on

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reality. People in the Republican Party for Mitt Romney, came close

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up to reality when they saw they were looking at the world and a

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jaded and biased way. You are an interesting phenomenon because you

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said I try not to talk to campaigns because they are mostly noise. You

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talk about politics being a game with a lot of and vested interests.

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ECGD not like to get into political debate and live in Washington. You

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cannot remain above the fray? think most journalists would not

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like to be the story. Part of the reason is that my block became

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symbolic of the polls. When you become invested with symbolic power

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it is not always your choice. It is a distraction. There are other

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sites that take a similar approach to what they do. They had largely

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similar results. All of them by election day, had Barack Obama

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ahead in the electoral college. When you have any type of signs or

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academic inquiry we have consensus view., different assumptions that

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you the same result, that is richer than when your model is based on

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one parameter. That might be changed. You can no longer remain

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above the political fray? I think I can. I do not really care about

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politics. There are things I worry about sports and economics. I have

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other ways to make a living. I have political views but as compared to

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people most people, I am a more detached from that world. The study

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politics at the University of Chicago, then you joined KPMG, you

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talk to online gambling and made $0.5 million from that. You said

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Poker gave you better training than anything I can think of about how

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to weigh new information and what may be less important information.

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The went into looking at baseball and looking at how players too. His

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politics another game like poker or You will get lucky sometimes as

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well. What is the best decision to make under an environment of

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uncertainty. That perspective is helpful. Knowing what we can and

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cannot control. Light politics where people take hyperbolic fuse.

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Manipulating public opinion. -- the views. You want $0.5 million. Why

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did you stop? That was at the peak. We lost some money after that.

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Poker was a bubble economy. In the meagre 2000, it was being on

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television. A lot of players who were not very good were depositing

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money. I took their money. Eventually the players got better

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off the bat once gave up all went broke. Anyway, you say the

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principles for piker, baseball, games and politics all were. Can

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your model predict any event? Could it have predicted the Arab spring

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for instance? We look at individual feels. Where there is some degree

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of predictability. Especially when the competition is not handling it

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in a very intelligent way. Sports, in the US, ten years ago baseball

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teams were not very sophisticated. Looking for cases like that.

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Predicting global and international events is something of a fool's

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errand. The best that democracies can do is prepare themselves

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overwriting of outcomes. Your success depends on... In the detail

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modelling Euan Dunn, worked on the US because there is so much data

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available. -- you haven't done. would be much more cautious about

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making predictions about because in Egypt. People may not be

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comfortable telling their honest opinion. In some countries, where

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the votes are counted fairly. what about the financial crisis for

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which there is a great deal of data and there was - could that have

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been predicted? There were a lot of people who understood the housing

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bubble well in advance. I should stay that the housing market was

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the relevant in the room. Seen the prices go up in the US and Western

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Europe, in the way that you always had a crash to follow. That was an

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obvious truth. One of the lessons of the book is that you can build

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are these very complicated and fancy models but if you lack of

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judgement it still lead you astray. You're talking about the book, the

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signal and the noise. Amaze all that noise and data, all that data

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we are overwhelmed with, looking at the financial crisis, do you thank

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you would be able to, however you do it, to say yes, the euro will

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survive or not it will crash? of the findings of the book is that

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the more sure of themselves the pound it is the less likely the

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outcome. I do not have a strong opinion on whether the eurozone

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will remain intact or not. I think it teaches us lessons

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retrospectively about maybe what happens with unknown unknowns. We

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take a big complex system that is working more less well and you

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change it, you can anticipate a problem like a common currency but

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the centralised control of public finances that will create

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difficulties. I do not think people anticipated how that would player.

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How funny you predict about how something is going to happen - the

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British elections in 2015 - the data is too premature? Politics and

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economics are closely tied together. Economists have been unable to

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predict recessions or recoveries more than six months in advance. To

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know the state of British economy in 2015 you would know more about

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how the politics would turn out all the elections were turnout. What

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about climate change signs which may spread dish -- predictions

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about what is going to happen in 70 years' time? Are you saying that is

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really based close? The reason why in the climate signed predictions

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but Test worthy is that they are based on theory which has been

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tested on the bases of relationships that have been

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understood for years. And you see a basic warming trend that correlates

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with carbon dioxide emissions. Climate change science can forecast

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what is going to happen to the earth in decades to come? If you

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Trapmore Hague in the atmosphere -- if you trap more heat in the

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atmosphere then you can predict something. But I cannot predict

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what is going to happen in Ireland in the summer of Myatt they know

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2058. The basic notion that the plan and is getting warmer and when

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things get that the economic consequences is on solid ground.

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There are those people, like the professor of statistics in

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Pennsylvania, says that there is a lot we need to know about the

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climate. These are her simplified representations of complex systems.

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These are just approximations. course, I agree with that entirely

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but the question is what evidence heavily absorbed so far? Could you

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discount that there is a big freeze that might happen a new Ice Age?

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think it is unlikely. But possible? Do you want to face a bet? I do not

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know if we're going to be around. I want to ask about the nature of

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predictions. The odds of a big freeze are hundreds to one against.

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When it comes to you, or something like climate change science based

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on predictions and forecast, and you accept what the professor has

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said, does one go to policy makers and politicians and public and say,

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we will base their policies on these predictions and commit

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billions and billions of dollars... A lot of policy positions have been

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based on predictions that were on a much less solid ground and then

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that, for example the invasion of Iraq. If, the decision to enter the

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and have a common currency. And there much more systematic

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uncertainties than in climate change. We have to make decisions

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all the time. With the information available. A statistician from the

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Copenhagen looked at climate change and accepts that it is happening

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undeniably but says the narrow focus of reducing carbon emissions

:22:28.:22:33.

that some governments have could leave future generations with major

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costs without major cards to temperatures. Does he have a point

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of as my this is not about the signs are predictions. This is

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about what we do as or alleviation technique. If we have that debate

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over here in Europe, in the US you have people still engaged in a

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scientific debate. If you read the chapter in my book, I'm not someone

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who says everything is always right on the climate science and be back.

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It is still at a premature debate in the US. You say in your book,

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you hope we might get more insight into planning our futures and

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become less likely to repeat our mistakes. That is right.Therefore,

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there is a purpose to predictions and forecasting. That is the whole

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point stop on his swing, in my view, forecasting is not the most

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critical thing in the world. But some of those same lessons you can

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learn from those fields are instructive when it comes to

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economic planning or obviously winning comes to anticipating where

:23:42.:23:45.

the climate might go and what we can do to change that and mitigate

:23:45.:23:54.

the effects. Wycombe and a lot from games, sports and politics. -- we

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