Quotes by Nate Silver

“Who needs theory when you have so much information? But this is categorically the wrong attitude to take toward forecasting, especially in a field like economics where the data is so noisy.”

“In science, progress is possible. In fact, if one believes in Bayes' theorem, scientific progress is inevitable as predictions are made and as beliefs are tested and refined.”

“Under Bayes' theorem, no theory is perfect. Rather, it is a work in progress, always subject to further refinement and testing.”

“...the ratings agencies' problem was in being unable or uninterested in appreciating the distinction between risk and uncertainty.”

“By playing games you can artificially speed up your learning curve to develop the right kind of thought processes.”

“We're not that much smarter than we used to be, even though we have much more information - and that means the real skill now is learning how to pick out the useful information from all this noise.”

“Distinguishing the signal from the noise requires both scientific knowledge and self-knowledge.”

“First of all, I think it's odd that people who cover politics wouldn't have any political views.”

“I'd say I am somewhere in between being a libertarian and a liberal. So if I were to vote it would be kind of a Gary Johnson versus Mitt Romney decision, I suppose.”

“I've always felt like something of an outsider. I've always had friends, but I've always come from an outside point of view. I think that's important. If you grow up gay, or in a household that's a...”

“There are entire disciplines in which predictions have been failing, often at great cost to society. Consider something like biomedical research. In 2005, an Athens-raised medical researcher named ...”

“GOP are so all-in on an all base mobilization, all the time strategy that people just take for granted it must be smart politics when it's far from obvious that's the case.”

“Bernie Sanders proudly describes himself as a socialist (or more commonly, as a democratic socialist). To Americans of a certain age, this is a potential liability. I’m just old enough (38) to have...”

“Since December 2015, there have 10 incidents that killed 10 or more people. That’s more than there was in 30 years between 1982 and 2011. And five of the 10 deadliest mass shootings in modern Ameri...”