Nate Silver, the former New York Times statistician and darling of the Democrats who recently angered liberals by predicting big wins for the Republicans in 2014, has now lost a little bit more of luster from the left.
He’s issued an apology of sorts for a post on his personal website written by a freelancer that seemed to question climate change, Fox News reported.
The piece, written by Colorado professor Roger Pielke, downplayed the impact of climate change by arguing that while weather-related disaster clean-up costs are escalating, that’s only due to the growing wealth of the world at-large.
Mr. Silver quickly backtracked.
He said: “Reception to the article ran about 80 percent negative in the comments section and on social media. A reaction like that compels us to think carefully about the piece and our editorial process. Roger’s article also contained an implicit policy recommendation in its closing paragraph. … [and] we generally prefer to avoid these kind of recommendations, and instead allow readers to draw any policy conclusions for themselves. Furthermore, there was some loose language in the article. … These things reflect a poor job of editing on our part.”
Mr. Silver said he’s put out the call for a rebuttal piece, but it could take a while for the post to be ready. Still, he reminded that “Roger is a freelance contributor and his private communications do not represent FiveThirtyEight,” HuffPost reported.
• Cheryl K. Chumley can be reached at cchumley@washingtontimes.com.
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