The problem with math, Nate Silver edition
By Nate Silver’s FiveThirtyEight has got a formula for predicting who gets into the college football playoff, and it’s pretty ridiculous. For example, the formula predicts that if Alabama loses to Florida today, there’s a 58% chance that Alabama will miss the playoff. The actual odds that Alabama misses the playoff are zero.
Alabama has been ranked #1 all year, they are universally considered the best team in college football this season, and if they were to lose to Florida they would have to be bumped from the playoff by at least one two-loss team. There is no possible way that can happen. None.
How do I know this? Because I’m a college football fan and I know how this stuff works. I can’t put it into a formula, unless “Alabama is already in the playoff no matter what happens today” counts as a formula.
But Silver has his numbers and he straps themselves to them even when they make no sense, which I guess is what he gets paid for. To be fair by sticking to his method he ended up being less wrong about the presidential election than everybody else so there’s that. But if your formula tells you something that any half-informed fan can tell you has no resemblance to reality, then maybe you should tweak it somehow. (I understand he’s working with very little data here but come on try harder).