Read on Twitter
A pet peeve is when I'm called prescient. I'm not. I never win the lotto. I never win at slots. I can't even tell you in the morning what I'm having for dinner. The people who have been warning for years & months about the world we're living in now were just looking at the data.
My opinion is that political reporting - especially election reporting - has inured people to the idea that facts exist.
If the main way in which you interact with data is through elections (or sports), whose results are often wrong to the minds of non-mathematicians
If the main way in which you interact with data is through elections (or sports), whose results are often wrong to the minds of non-mathematicians
You aren't going to listen when a scientist says that a model says X. And I think that primes you to recall when the models are wrong.
We remember when the weather forecast was wrong - not when it was right.
People grouse when Dark Sky is off by a few hours on a thunder storm
We remember when the weather forecast was wrong - not when it was right.
People grouse when Dark Sky is off by a few hours on a thunder storm
Do you understand how bananas it is to have reasonably accurate weather forecasting a week out? How the fact that NOAA told us in like June to expect a hot summer?
That climate scientists were telling me in *March* that California would play out the way it is playing out?
That climate scientists were telling me in *March* that California would play out the way it is playing out?
NOAA said in May that it was going to be a bananas Atlantic hurricane season.
::Stares in Laura and Marco::
We should not be this far down the alphabet in naming tropical storms, and yet here we are.
They were correct.
::Stares in Laura and Marco::
We should not be this far down the alphabet in naming tropical storms, and yet here we are.
They were correct.
My other pet peeve is *how* people interpret forecasts when they are off.
So many people in NYC have told me that Hurricane Irene, which hit the year before whatever the eff Sandy was, "was a dud."
It was NOT.
It JUST MISSED THE MARK AND HIT UPSTATE NY AND VERMONT INSTEAD
So many people in NYC have told me that Hurricane Irene, which hit the year before whatever the eff Sandy was, "was a dud."
It was NOT.
It JUST MISSED THE MARK AND HIT UPSTATE NY AND VERMONT INSTEAD
Roughly 50 people died atop those who lost their homes and businesses.
And the reason why storms on average are less deadly is because improved prediction thanks to satellites mean fewer of us die despite more of us at risk https://www.popsci.com/noaa-satellites-storm-predictions/
And the reason why storms on average are less deadly is because improved prediction thanks to satellites mean fewer of us die despite more of us at risk https://www.popsci.com/noaa-satellites-storm-predictions/
In 2016 I interviewed someone who lived somewhere without decent prediction capabilities. He had no warning when Cyclone (hurricane) Nargis hit. He survived by holding onto a tree. More than 10 of his family members did not https://www.earthisland.org/journal/index.php/magazine/entry/forecast_uncertain/
Also, please don't tell me that the polls were statistically correct. I *get* it. I took econometrics. Most people don't take statistics.
