Age: 34.
Appearance: Sheldon from The Big Bang Theory.
Never seen it. Then just imagine a generic massive geek.
Will do. So who is he? He's a psephologist and former sabermetrician.
A what and a what now? A statistical analyst of elections and a former statistical analyst of baseball. His blog, FiveThirtyEight, now hosted by the New York Times, is the go-to site for cold, hard election stats.
So he's pretty good then? Well, he got Tuesday's presidential election exactly right.
So did half the world's tossed coins. True enough. But they weren't quite as accurate.
Meaning? Silver didn't just predict Obama was going to win it. He correctly projected the results for every single one of America's 50 states. Something 50 tossed coins would have less than a one in a trillion chance of getting right.
Ah, well. That's a little more impressive. How'd he do it? With his "election simulator" statistical model, which aggregates hundreds of polling figures and economic data, weights it all for accuracy, factors in a load of fancy maths about past elections and boils the whole thing down to a percentage chance of victory for each candidate. On Tuesday morning, while many pundits were insisting it was too close to call, Silver's model put Obama's chances at a precise and healthy 90.9%.
How did pundits feel about that? Pretty uncomfortable. He was derided in the media as "a joke", who was "getting into silly land". One rightwing blogger even dismissed his predictions on the grounds that Silver – an openly gay Democrat – was "thin and effeminate".
Because your maths is wrong if you're not fat and masculine? Apparently.
Why such hatred for a mere statistician? A few reasons. In part, because he dispelled the myth of Mitt's momentum. In part, because some people feel that stats have "a well-known liberal bias". And, in part, because if number-crunchers are this dang good, the days of the postulating pundit may be, well, numbered.
Do say: "Lies, damned lies and thin and effeminate statistics."
Don't say: "I thought a sabermetrician measured swords."
