Mark Coddington gives a smart assessment of the recent media backlash against Nate Silver:
In actuality, of course, Silver’s specificity isn’t arrogance at all — it’s the natural product of a scientific, statistical way of producing knowledge. Statistical analyses produce specific numbers by their very nature. That doesn’t mean they’re certain: In fact, the epistemology has long been far more tentative in reaching conclusions than the epistemology of journalism. As many people have noted over the past few days, a probability is not a prediction. Silver himself has repeatedly called for less certainty in political analysis, not more. But that split between specificity and certainty is a foreign concept to the journalistic epistemology.
Perhaps Ezra Klein put it best:
Lots of pundits don’t like Nate Silver because he makes them feel innumerate. Then they criticize him and prove it.