What can we learn from data about what actually happened in the election?
11/25/24 • 46 min
Approximately ten billion different narratives about what happened in the recent US presidential election have emerged since said election. But how many of these narratives can be substantiated by data? How can we tell?
Political scientist Seth Masket joins us to discuss how to make thoughtful inferences from this data, how and why to be skeptical of evidence-free opinions, and the importance (just like in the last episode!!) of being thoughtful about whether our narratives are based on data or we (or others who are trying to persuade us of something) are simply trying to pick data to support our narrative(s). Stick around until the end to hear how polls did and Seth's thoughts on why everything feels so politically bad these days.
Follow and read more by Seth:
- His substack: smotus.substack.com
- His podcast: powerflour.substack.com
- His personal website: sethmasket.com
Follow Andrea at jonesrooy.com and on Instagram at @jonesrooy.
Behind the Data is a podcast that uncovers the hidden stories within the data shaping our world. From political polls to global happiness trackers, we dive into the datasets that influence the decisions we make—while showing you why data isn’t just numbers, but a way to understand the world. Whether you're a data newbie or a seasoned pro, each episode makes complex data approachable, revealing surprising insights and the human side of every dataset. Come for the discoveries, stay for the stories.
We are proud to be part of the Daily Tech News Show network of podcasts.
Subscribe and leave a review!
Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
Approximately ten billion different narratives about what happened in the recent US presidential election have emerged since said election. But how many of these narratives can be substantiated by data? How can we tell?
Political scientist Seth Masket joins us to discuss how to make thoughtful inferences from this data, how and why to be skeptical of evidence-free opinions, and the importance (just like in the last episode!!) of being thoughtful about whether our narratives are based on data or we (or others who are trying to persuade us of something) are simply trying to pick data to support our narrative(s). Stick around until the end to hear how polls did and Seth's thoughts on why everything feels so politically bad these days.
Follow and read more by Seth:
- His substack: smotus.substack.com
- His podcast: powerflour.substack.com
- His personal website: sethmasket.com
Follow Andrea at jonesrooy.com and on Instagram at @jonesrooy.
Behind the Data is a podcast that uncovers the hidden stories within the data shaping our world. From political polls to global happiness trackers, we dive into the datasets that influence the decisions we make—while showing you why data isn’t just numbers, but a way to understand the world. Whether you're a data newbie or a seasoned pro, each episode makes complex data approachable, revealing surprising insights and the human side of every dataset. Come for the discoveries, stay for the stories.
We are proud to be part of the Daily Tech News Show network of podcasts.
Subscribe and leave a review!
Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
Previous Episode
What data does your doctor collect about you?
Dr. Steven Novella, clinical neurologist and host of The Skeptics' Guide to the Universe podcast joins us to share how he collects and analyzes data when he works with patients (there is so much more going on than I realized!) as well as how AI can hopefully improve the practice of medicine if we get it right. It's a longer episode than usual, but I hope you'll agree it's well worth it.
Follow Steve:
https://www.theskepticsguide.org/
https://sciencebasedmedicine.org/
https://theness.com/neurologicablog/
Follow Andrea:
https://www.jonesrooy.com/ and @jonesrooy on socials.
Behind the Data is a podcast that uncovers the hidden stories within the data shaping our world. From political polls to global happiness trackers, we dive into the datasets that influence the decisions we make—while showing you why data isn’t just numbers, but a way to understand the world. Whether you're a data newbie or a seasoned pro, each episode makes complex data approachable, revealing surprising insights and the human side of every dataset. Come for the discoveries, stay for the stories.
We are proud to be part of the Daily Tech News Show network of podcasts.
Subscribe and leave a review!
Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
Next Episode
The art and science of measuring democracy
Is democracy in decline around the world? This is a major question on many of our minds, and luckily for us there are very smart, thoughtful people working on tracking (as well as explaining, understanding, and predicting!) exactly this. We are joined by professor Brigitte Seim, who is a project manager for the Varieties of Democracy (V-Dem) dataset, which is one of the biggest and most elaborate efforts to track democracy around the world to date. We discuss how to think about turning something as abstract and unwieldy as "democracy" into a number, how to make sense of and learn from those numbers, and about her own research on the growing importance of measuring toxic political speech online to understanding the health of democracy.
This is a great episode for anyone who cares about democracy or regime type broadly, but also for anyone interested in the beautiful art and science of measurement (one of my favorite topics ever!), as well as for anyone interested in learning about a dataset that is a great place to start if you're looking for some data to practice and work with in your own curiosity-based data science journey. Enjoy!
Learn more on Brigitte here and check out her prolific research here. Read about and explore the Varieties of Democracy dataset at v-dem.net.
Learn more about Andrea here and on Instagram at @jonesrooy.
Behind the Data is a podcast that uncovers the hidden stories within the data shaping our world. From political polls to global happiness trackers, we dive into the datasets that influence the decisions we make—while showing you why data isn’t just numbers, but a way to understand the world. Whether you're a data newbie or a seasoned pro, each episode makes complex data approachable, revealing surprising insights and the human side of every dataset. Come for the discoveries, stay for the stories.
We are proud to be part of the Daily Tech News Show network of podcasts.
Subscribe and leave a review!
Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
If you like this episode you’ll love
Episode Comments
Generate a badge
Get a badge for your website that links back to this episode
<a href="https://goodpods.com/podcasts/behind-the-data-633706/what-can-we-learn-from-data-about-what-actually-happened-in-the-electi-84625068"> <img src="https://storage.googleapis.com/goodpods-images-bucket/badges/generic-badge-1.svg" alt="listen to what can we learn from data about what actually happened in the election? on goodpods" style="width: 225px" /> </a>
Copy