Honestly? It's cool to see a statistician getting media love. I imagine for most people he's like a real life character from Big Bang Theory. I've seen him on tv several times and he comes off as incredibly nerdy, but he's skilled at talking about statistics and making it relatable to the average person.
In a way, he's a spokesman for statistical reasoning to the world. It's odd to see how much pushback he gets for saying "A candidate with a slight lead in October wins 75% of the time". This is a fact, easy to look up. But because the other side and the media don't like it, Nate is put into the position of defending common sense to America. And he does an admirable job.
Hopefully he can find a way to use this for good outside of politics. Maybe he can educate people about statistics and probability in other ways. Starting a blog that correctly predicts the behavior of reality tv stars might be the best thing he could do for the cause of reason in this country.
Maybe there's a media empire that can be built from people like this? We've always had such people in the media, but our tools and technology hold more potential power to individuals than ever before.
I've long thought it would be awesome if someone started a business along these lines: a news source driven by data analysis; like fivethirtyeight but for analysis of all sorts of news and current events, not just elections.
How about "Freakonomics News?" A reality show using the methods used by the campaigns to figure out the behavior of "cohorts" could be devastating. Marketers have known scary stuff about us based on personal data, even before the Internet. A show based on actuarial data and gene sequencing would be both informative and appeal to base instincts.
In a way, he's a spokesman for statistical reasoning to the world. It's odd to see how much pushback he gets for saying "A candidate with a slight lead in October wins 75% of the time". This is a fact, easy to look up. But because the other side and the media don't like it, Nate is put into the position of defending common sense to America. And he does an admirable job.
Hopefully he can find a way to use this for good outside of politics. Maybe he can educate people about statistics and probability in other ways. Starting a blog that correctly predicts the behavior of reality tv stars might be the best thing he could do for the cause of reason in this country.