Nate Silver

Nate Silver

For a majority of the pollsters and established pundits, the outcome of the 2012 presidential election was a shock. For statistician, author and blogger Nate Silver, it was anything but. To accurately predict the presidential win, he pushed hubris aside and listened to the signals (the relevant data), not the noise. Silver shares his methods on predictions in his new book, The Signal and the Noise: Why So Many Predictions Fail – But Some Don’t, which is also the title of his talk at Washington University in St. Louis at 6 p.m. Monday, Feb. 11, in Graham Chapel.

For a majority of the pollsters and established pundits, the outcome of the 2012 presidential election was a shock. For statistician, author and blogger Nate Silver, it was anything but. To accurately predict the presidential win, he pushed hubris aside and listened to the signals (the relevant data), not the noise.

Silver shares his methods on predictions in his new book, The Signal and the Noise: Why So Many Predictions Fail – But Some Don’t, which is also the title of his talk at Washington University in St. Louis at 6 p.m. Monday, Feb. 11, in Graham Chapel.

For years, he has written one of the most trusted political blogs, NYT’s FiveThiryEight.com, which won Best Political Coverage in the 2008 Weblog Awards. The Signal and the Noise, published last September, reached The New York Times Best Seller List for nonfiction and was named by Amazon.com as one of the best nonfiction book of 2012.

His accolades include being named one of Time’s 100 Most Influential People of 2009 and Rolling Stone’s 100 Agents of Change.

Silver holds a bachelor’s degree in economics from the University of Chicago and a master’s degree from the London School of Economics.

Seating for the Silver event is on a first-come, first-served basis, with limited access to the public. A remote telecast will be available in Umrath Hall Lounge, and it will be live-streamed and broadcast on the campus TV channel.

For the most updated information, visit assemblyseries.wustl.edu or call (314) 935-4620.