The bull case for Nate Silver is getting harder to make The madman! I guess the main reason Nate Silver is a household name today is that he was thought to have made exceptionally good predictions in the 2008 and 2012 presidential elections. He got 49/50 states right in 2008 and all…

Their “equitable algorithms” are neither equitable nor algorithms Background and Timeline I’d prefer to start this blog with “You’ve probably heard about the recent allegations against Joe Biden…” but that might not be true. So instead I’ll start with a brief timeline of this important story: March 25: In an interview with Katie…

It was all based on dogma, not science. A novel idea: block the virus Some research questions require carefully conducted epidemiological studies or randomized trials to examine, and others are sufficiently obvious that we could safely forego such endeavors. In my view, the question of whether face masks reduce transmission rates of respiratory viruses falls squarely…

Public health experts maintain dogmatic position that’s wrong on face value For whatever reason, public health organizations are in broad agreement that the general public shouldn’t wear facemasks to protect against coronavirus transmission. The latest double-down comes from U.S. Surgeon General Jerome M. Adams: Seems strange, doesn’t it? We’ve…

But their algorithms account for fatigue, travel distance, and altitude — cool! FiveThirtyEight’s predictions FiveThirtyEight publishes point spreads and win probabilities for every NBA game. They actually publish two sets of predictions: RAPTOR and Elo. Here’s a brief snippet FiveThirtyEight provides for each: Our player-based RAPTOR forecast doesn’t account for wins and…

Should have stopped at three bullet points Risky tweet Twitter has essentially limitless potential as a platform for public health agencies to broadcast their consensus recommendations to the people. Unfortunately, a lot of agencies’ recommendations aren’t good. Consider this one: Bullet point (1) implies masks are effective at preventing transmission to…

Some evidence for independent prognostic value FiveThirtyEight’s NBA Predictions FiveThirtyEight publishes predictions for every NBA game. Actually, two sets of predictions: “RAPTOR” and “ELO”. For each game, they publish a point spread and win probability based on each algorithm. Here’s the situation today: There’s actually quite a lot of disagreement between the algorithms…

I like the Bills Bovada betting odds The NFL playoffs start today, and as usual there are some interesting betting propositions. Here’s the current situation on Bovada: The Ravens are favored, which is no surprise given their NFL leading record…

Equal amplification of risk and return: enticing! In general, pursuing larger raw returns requires sacrificing risk-adjusted performance. If you want more growth than a short-term bond fund offers, you can invest in an intermediate- or long-term bond fund, but you have to accept a worse risk-return profile. …