Quote on Nate Silver, and how to think about probabilities

ChrisHallquist

If Mitt Romney wins on election day, it doesn’t mean Silver’s model was wrong. After all, the model has been fluctuating between giving Romney a 25 percent and 40 percent chance of winning the election. That’s a pretty good chance! If you told me I had a 35 percent chance of winning a million dollars tomorrow, I’d be excited. And if I won the money, I wouldn’t turn around and tell you your information was wrong. I’d still have no evidence I’d ever had anything more than a 35 percent chance.

Okay, technically, winning the money would be very weak Bayesian evidence that the initial probability estimate was wrong. Still a very good quote.

From Ezra Klein:

If Mitt Romney wins on election day, it doesn’t mean Silver’s model was wrong. After all, the model has been fluctuating between giving Romney a 25 percent and 40 percent chance of winning the election. That’s a pretty good chance! If you told me I had a 35 percent chance of winning a million dollars tomorrow, I’d be excited. And if I won the money, I wouldn’t turn around and tell you your information was wrong. I’d still have no evidence I’d ever had anything more than a 35 percent chance.

Okay, technically, winning the money would be very weak Bayesian evidence that the initial probability estimate was wrong. Still a very good quote.

It's not a question of whether it's "good news", but whether it's a plausible chance of occurring (or rather, whether it's a "big-enough-feeling" probability).

From the quote, it sounds like its a question of whether odds lower than one's prior should increase or decrease excitement when the stakes are high.

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Quote on Nate Silver, and how to think about probabilities

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Quote on Nate Silver, and how to think about probabilities

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