Nate Silver - Statistician HARDtalk

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

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

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

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

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

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

of political forecasting. But has he robbed electoral campaigns of

their substance by reducing them to mere statistics and number-

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

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

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

conditions of uncertainty. Trying to plan who the next president

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

and strive to be more scientific with projections. Your predictions

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

judgement forms an important part of forecasting and predictions. It

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

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

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

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

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

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

information. Sometimes, sticking with simple things like poles that

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

newspapers and television programmes to say it will be a

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

You have many Poles from many different states which can increase

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

mathematical equation? These are the people that thought Mitt Romney

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

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

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

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

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

senior member of the bush establishment. Why is that a

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

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

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

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

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

approach was devoid of substance and trivialises politics.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

They everyone is biased. They historian Kim Stanley is accusing

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

journalistic values are those. putting up to that Michael Gerson

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

about that world. By making verifiable predictions and claims

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

cannot remain above the fray? think most journalists would not

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

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

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

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

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

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

academic inquiry we have consensus view., different assumptions that

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

cannot control. Light politics where people take hyperbolic fuse.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

of predictability. Especially when the competition is not handling it

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

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

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

errand. The best that democracies can do is prepare themselves

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

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

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

making predictions about because in Egypt. People may not be

comfortable telling their honest opinion. In some countries, where

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

retrospectively about maybe what happens with unknown unknowns. We

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

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

the centralised control of public finances that will create

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

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

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

economics are closely tied together. Economists have been unable to

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

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

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

about climate change signs which may spread dish -- predictions

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

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

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

tested on the bases of relationships that have been

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

with carbon dioxide emissions. Climate change science can forecast

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

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

atmosphere then you can predict something. But I cannot predict

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

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

things get that the economic consequences is on solid ground.

There are those people, like the professor of statistics in

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

climate. These are her simplified representations of complex systems.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

we will base their policies on these predictions and commit

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

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

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

and have a common currency. And there much more systematic

uncertainties than in climate change. We have to make decisions

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

Copenhagen looked at climate change and accepts that it is happening

undeniably but says the narrow focus of reducing carbon emissions

that some governments have could leave future generations with major

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

learn from those fields are instructive when it comes to

economic planning or obviously winning comes to anticipating where

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

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