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<blockquote data-quote="Ovinomancer" data-source="post: 7473423" data-attributes="member: 16814">Reading your post again, I still come away with you saying a wee p is validation of the model as correct.&nbsp; Did you intend to convey a different meaning?&nbsp; In the context you responded, something other would be very unclearly stated.With intent.&nbsp; Statistics usually invokes reification in it's users, to their error.Well, yes, it's dismissive, as I'm saying you're wrong.&nbsp; I provided reasons for this in the same post -- p-values are not measures of reality, but of model parameters, and that reification of model parameters into real things shown is rampant.&nbsp; I tried to chose a humorous way to put that.If your model is a statistical one, all you can possibly show is correlation.&nbsp; Causation is outside the realm of statistics.&nbsp; Saying that Silver is doing science when he builds a statistical model that uses heavily weighted and adjusted poll results (themselves very imperfect data sets) is ludicrous, regardless of his success rate.&nbsp; Nate Silver is, foremost, an astute political observer.&nbsp; He has a knack for putting his predictions in math-y format.&nbsp; Absent his keen observations, which lead to how he weights his data inputs, his models wouldn't have much skill.&nbsp; The success of Nate Silver is not due to his statistical methods, but his interpretation and massaging of the data inputs into his statistical methods.&nbsp; Plenty of other keen political observers had similar predictions to Silver's without the stats.&nbsp; Sliver is engaged in political prognostication wrapped in stats.&nbsp; This does not make what he does science (use of stats does not science make anywhere) -- it's still just politics watching.</blockquote>

[QUOTE="Ovinomancer, post: 7473423, member: 16814"] Reading your post again, I still come away with you saying a wee p is validation of the model as correct. Did you intend to convey a different meaning? In the context you responded, something other would be very unclearly stated. With intent. Statistics usually invokes reification in it's users, to their error. Well, yes, it's dismissive, as I'm saying you're wrong. I provided reasons for this in the same post -- p-values are not measures of reality, but of model parameters, and that reification of model parameters into real things shown is rampant. I tried to chose a humorous way to put that. If your model is a statistical one, all you can possibly show is correlation. Causation is outside the realm of statistics. Saying that Silver is doing science when he builds a statistical model that uses heavily weighted and adjusted poll results (themselves very imperfect data sets) is ludicrous, regardless of his success rate. Nate Silver is, foremost, an astute political observer. He has a knack for putting his predictions in math-y format. Absent his keen observations, which lead to how he weights his data inputs, his models wouldn't have much skill. The success of Nate Silver is not due to his statistical methods, but his interpretation and massaging of the data inputs into his statistical methods. Plenty of other keen political observers had similar predictions to Silver's without the stats. Sliver is engaged in political prognostication wrapped in stats. This does not make what he does science (use of stats does not science make anywhere) -- it's still just politics watching. [/QUOTE]

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