Thursday, November 8, 2012

Epistemology

There are dozens (or hundreds) of articles have been written about the Fox reaction to the election. There are just as many articles written Nate Silver, his projects, and analysis. But there is really only one that you need to read: Why political journalists can’t stand Nate Silver: The limits of journalistic knowledge:

The other objection political journalists/pundits have to Silver’s process is evident here, too. They don’t just have a problem with how he knows what he knows, but with how he states it, too. Essentially, they are mistaking specificity for certainty. To them, the specificity of Silver’s projections smack of arrogance because, again, their ways of knowing are incapable of producing that kind of specificity. It has to be an overstatement.

2 comments:

_J_ said...

That is a very good article.

It's interesting that we're actually having debates over something that ultimately reduces down to: Science/Math > Hunch

One need only watch clips from FOX pundit projections to observe the flaws in hunches.

Mike Lewis said...

Megyn Kelly's "so what does that mean" reaction after Fox calls Ohio is utterly amazing.

Its that they do not see it as a "hunch" is what is amazing.

Political pundit, particularly those who are on television, believe they have access to a delivered knowledge. They are basically 16th century Calvinists. They know that Romeny is going to win because they have access to privileged knowledge.

Karl Rove can get on the phone with the director of Romeny's campaign at the height of vote counting. At a point when the Romney campaign was in the middle of doing the same math as all of the networks.