Image Credit: Nam Y. Huh/AP
You don’t have to be a genius to accurately predict the Oscars — but it probably can’t hurt. Nate Silver, the sports and political statistical soothsayer who correctly predicted all 50 states’ results in the most recent presidential election, has filled out his office pool for Sunday’s Oscars based on the numbers. His only problem: those elusive numbers, which aren’t as solid as a political junkie might be used to. “You can’t claim to have a data-driven prediction when you don’t have any data,” he admits on his New York Times FiveThirtyEight Blog. “There is [no] magic formula for this.”
Instead, Silver digs into the history of the pre-Oscar awards and their respective track records for predicting the big winners. Kudos, Directors Guild (80 percent success rate). Why bother, L.A. Film Critics Association (12 percent)? Crunching the data, dividing by the Life of Pi, and multiplying by the number of electoral votes from the home state of each film’s dolly grip, Silver ultimately produces results that… well, likely resemble your own. READ FULL STORY »
