Nate Silver Biography

Fast Facts

• Became famous for his predictions of the results of the 2008 and 2012 presidential elections, calling 49 states correctly in 2008 and all 50 in 2012
• Graduated from the University of Chicago with a degree in Economics
• Created the PECOTA system for baseball statistics, which was used to identify prospects in the minor leagues who would excel in the majors
• First posted his predictions about the presidential election on the Daily Kos blog in 2007 under the screen name "Poblano․"
• Was working at an unsatisfying job at a consulting company when he created the PECOTA baseball statistics system and began pursuing other ways to make predictions
• Quote: "People sometimes get the idea that you put all this data into a machine, and you press a button and out come miraculous ideas․․․there's a lot of ways to take a lot of data, mangle what you're doing with it․․․and get yourself in trouble․"
• Quote: "Polling data is noisy and polling is becoming more challenging․ The occasional or even not-so-occasional result that deviates from the consensus is sometimes a sign the pollster is doing good, honest work and trusting its data․"
• Best known as a statistician and writer of the FiveThirtyEight blog whose sports and politics predictions are nearly 100 percent accurate
• Among his other successful predictions have been NCAA basketball champions, Oscar Award winners, and the distribution of support for gay marriage across the U․S
• His startlingly high rate of prediction accuracy has even led to the establishment of the tongue-in-cheek website IsNateSilverAWitch․com, which is updated daily