Episode 188: Nate Silver

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.” Thanks to MailChimp, Bombas, Squarespace, and Trunk Club for sponsoring this week's episode. 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) Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices