Put Not Thy Trust in Nate Silver
30th October 2020
On the evening of November 8, 2016, much of the country found itself transfixed by the vacillations of a tiny needle. It was the graphical representation of the New York Times’s presidential election forecast, which initially rated Hillary Clinton’s chances of victory at above 80 percent. Around 8 p.m. Eastern on election night, it began to lurch unsteadily toward her opponent. In the end, the needle correctly projected his victory a few hours before it was called. The needle’s jittery motions made it the object of collective outrage on the part of Clinton partisans, but it was fundamentally doing what it was designed to do: model the likelihood of outcomes based on available data.