Nate Silver Catches Loads Of Shit On Pielke Insurance/Disaster Piece, Takes It Very Personally

[hatrack]

Statistician Nate Silver acknowledged to Jon Stewart Thursday night that a climate change piece on his new site FiveThirtyEight was facing some serious backlash. The data-driven news site launched just over a week ago, and, as Stewart put it: "You are taking a rash of sh*t in a week and a half like nobody I've seen in a long time."

The climate story, by Roger Pielke Jr., argues that natural disasters are costing more, but not due to climate change. Numerous scientists quickly refuted points from the article.

Climate scientist John P. Abraham suggested that "Pielke has a history of climate claims which have been criticized by scientists." Abraham went on to argue that "a review of the evidence shows that [Pielke's] view is not supported by much of the scientific literature."

EDIT

Silver added that the criticism against his staff is "like someone's throwing apples at your kids or something."

EDIT/END

Ed. - Awwwwwwwwwwwww!!! Tho Thad!!!

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/03/27/nate-silver-jon-stewart-climate-change_n_5046810.html?utm_hp_ref=media&ir=Media

[tridim]

1. I like Nate, but his new venture is severely tainted by this.

Maybe fatally.

[n2doc]

2. He might try to actually listen and learn from the critics

Instead of circling the wagons.

[monmouth3]

3. The Nate vs. Paul Krugman "feud" is drawing a lot of backlash also. Krugman seems to

be winning that one. Nate is described as petty, etc.

[Nay]

4. Nate has a swelled head. He, like many people before him, thinks that because

he is a good statistician, he's good at everything else, too. And that whatever else he believes is totally correct just because he is good at statistics.

Wrong. I suspect he is a libertarian; that's why he hired the climate denier guy. Libertarians believe lots of wacky stuff, and if he wades into real science, he's in for a fight. He'll have to rationally defend his position and he won't be able to.

[Viking12]

5. 538 announced this morning they've commissioned a response to RPjr's hack piece

Supposedly by a well-credentialed scientist.

I can't be too tough on the new 538, yet -- fer christ sakes it's only 2 weeks old. Give it some time to breath and grow and it could be a useful place to visit.