Nate Silver got “the equivalent of a nerd lifetime achievement award” Friday at the MIT Sloan Sports Analytics Conference, Ira Boudway reports. The statistician used his speech to strike out at some old enemies:
Silver used the occasion to take another swipe at the political pundit class, getting the biggest applause of the session when he noted that a lot of their work “really is total bullshit … that ads (sic) no value to anything at all.” He called out Bob Shrum in particular as a “guy who’s never been on a winning political campaign.” Silver has earned his spot on the dais and the authority to call bullshit. Still it’s hard not to notice that he was veering dangerously close to pundit behavior as he and the others on the stage shared the stories of how they landed there. The panel’s Revenge of the Nerds “narrative” is just the sort of easy, conventional wisdom a good pundit loves.
Previously: Nate Silver: “A lot of news is really entertainment masquerading as news” | Nate Silver on Reddit: Pundits are ‘very delusional people’
