> If all sorts of things can happen, where you predictions change widely, Taleb’s argument is that you can’t use a number like 90%. You have to include the error, which ends up saying “50%” for both before the election.
Taleb is, simply, wrong.
The difference from 100%/0% is the uncertainty. If new information confirms rather than contradicts prior information, that uncertainty goes down, if it contradicts it, the uncertainty goes up. You expect most of the time the general trend over time to be declining uncertainty, but when there is a period of continuing new information at odds with the prior information, you get a period of increasing uncertainty.
So if you had a very large number of Presidential election cycles with the same model, you'd expect most of them to generally trend toward greater certainty over time, but you'd expect a few of them to have extended periods of declining certainty.
Does Silver's Presidential model work that way? It's hard to tell. One, because there aren't a lot of cycles to look at, and because they aren't the exact same model, is it's not quite what you'd want to look at it to assess that. Well, 2012 and 2020 have had very much the general shape of growing certainty you'd expect, while 2016 didn't.
Taleb is, simply, wrong.
The difference from 100%/0% is the uncertainty. If new information confirms rather than contradicts prior information, that uncertainty goes down, if it contradicts it, the uncertainty goes up. You expect most of the time the general trend over time to be declining uncertainty, but when there is a period of continuing new information at odds with the prior information, you get a period of increasing uncertainty.
So if you had a very large number of Presidential election cycles with the same model, you'd expect most of them to generally trend toward greater certainty over time, but you'd expect a few of them to have extended periods of declining certainty.
Does Silver's Presidential model work that way? It's hard to tell. One, because there aren't a lot of cycles to look at, and because they aren't the exact same model, is it's not quite what you'd want to look at it to assess that. Well, 2012 and 2020 have had very much the general shape of growing certainty you'd expect, while 2016 didn't.