Nerd alert! @fivethirtyeight on politics, baseball, poker, & big data #noisedata #sxsw- Silver has a good sense of humor about his recent rise to prominence. He was searched more times than Joe Biden, but certainly less than Justin Beiber. This surprises him because, in his opinion, examining polls is not life changing research.
Silver, true to form, is very humble about his methodologies and his results. #sxsw #noisedata- Silver has us all laughing as he shows how, for 1 week, he was Googled more often than Biden, but neither were close to Bieber #noisedata
In one week, Nate Silver was more searched than the VP. Both were beat, however, by the Biebs. #noisedata
Link between more information and partisanship #noisedata #sxsw13 pic.twitter.com/L9jGO08bwL/L9jGO08bwL- Big Data, Big Problems? Silver discusses research findings that questioning whether big data is actually contributing to solving problems. However, Silver looks points to history to highlight that whenever there is a spike in available data, the more discourse and disagreement. Given that 90% of all the data in the world has been generated in the last 2 years, there is plenty of opportunity for problems.
We are witnessing the largest spike in available data since the invention of the printing press. #noisedata #sxsw- Silver points out that we've seen this kind of thing before - when the printing press was invented, number of books spiked #sxsw #noisedata
Deja vu all over again same exponential curve with growth of printing press as with growth of data now. #noisedata #SXSW2013
More info = more conflict, more probs in short term. #noisedata- With the rise of information we naturally have more to disagree about. #noisedata
Nate Silver says that data explosion can cause more conflict #sxswi.#noisedata- …but this spike in information did not lead to more harmony - wars, the reformation etc - because more info = more conflict #sxsw #noisedata
- Case in point, this prolific explosion of data, we have had the most divided and least productive Congress in the history of the United States.
- "The last congress was the the most divided congress in history, and coincidentally the least productive." #sxsw #noisedata
- The danger of prolific data is that partisan forces may choose to "cherry pick" data to offer a biased perspective in the guide of unbiased data. "You're not entitled to your own facts," says Silver. For example, he pulls up the Drudge Report's homepage during the recent 2012 elections, where headlines seemed to selectively represent polling data but, clearly, it was not completely representative of the truth.
Access to more data does not lead to more consensus among people. ppl cherry pick info consumed. @fivethirtyeight #noisedata #almalearns
The more data there is, the more likely it is that people will cherry pick the info that matches their partisanship. #sxsw #noisedata
Why is it that big data doesn't create big change? We cherry pick the facts that tell the stories we'd like to hear. #noisedata #SXSWi
Drudge report was building the case early to dispute '12 election results. @fivethirtyeight #asksilver #noisedata- Silver is showing us how the Drudge Report's front page on election day cherry picked polls that predicted Romney to win #sxsw #noisedata
- Another consideration with massive amounts of data is the "noise," where there is an overwhelming number of permutations due the sheer volume of metrics. The volume of information being gathered begs the question whether there is actual knowledge contributed by this info.
The more data we have, the greater the gap b/w what we know & what we think we know. #noisedata #almalearns pic.twitter.com/ug0aHybOdx/ug0aHybOdx- The 61,000 economic data measures available from Budget Office amounts to over 1 billion permutations #sxsw #noisedata
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The Signal & the Noise: Nate Silver at SXSWi
Live coverage of the statistical soothsayer's visit to SXSW, discussing the problems with big data, predictions and more.
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