Silver’s book looks not only at political forecasters, but also at those who predict hurricanes, poker games, national security risks and the stock market. And it’s a good understanding of probability that tends to make for success.

Silver writes, “Our views about predictability are inherently flawed. Take something that is often seen as the epitome of randomness, like a coin toss. While it may at first appear that there’s no way to tell whether a coin is going to come up heads or tails, a group of mathematicians at Stanford is able to predict the outcome virtually 100 percent of the time, provided that they use a special machine to flip it. The machine does not cheat — it flips the coin the exact same way (the same height, with the same strength and torque) over and over again — and the coin is fair. Under those conditions, there is no randomness at all. The reason that we view coin flips as unpredictable is because when we toss them, we’re never able to reproduce the exact same motion.”

Check out the book, out today, or read an excerpt explaining why you should never call a weatherman a moron. Below, watch Silver’s TEDTalk from 2009, which is still sadly relevant.

Nate Silver: Does race affect votes?
How did race play out in the 2008 presidential election? Math whiz Nate Silver unpacks the many layers of variables and gives fascinating insight into how town planning could promote tolerance in the future. Because, as he says, when something is predictable—it is also designable.

This one’s for the peace-makers:

On Alex Tabarrok’s interview with the TEDBlog:
TED talks are supposed to create debate, not end them.. Seems this one was a success then? — Oli

On Nathan Wolfe’s interview with the TEDBlog:
Bird flu is essentially a veterinary problem. Swine Flu is essentially a human health problem, and so is alarmism and fear. But not information and prevention, those are on our side and also on our side is the augmentation of average temperatures in the coming months and…wash your hands! — Manel via facebook

On Laurie Garrett’s TEDTalk: What can we learn from the 1918 flu pandemic?:
I thought this was particularly insightful given the evolution of the H1n1 virus in Mexico this past week. I heard people are reusing masks even those found in the trash cans. They wash and re-sell them, this is one case where ignorance kills and spreads a flu — Juan via facebook

On Nate Silver’s interview with the TEDBlog:
But yes, he is not pinheaded nor racist. He _is_ a nerdy dude who is big on analyzing and finding relationships within information… public speaking is not his forte. — Toby via facebook

And, sometimes, the community glue is the speaker themselves:

On Brian Cox’s TEDTalk: What went wrong (and what’s next) at the Large Hadron Collider:
If the Higgs bosun particle (God particle), when found, is as congenial as Brian Cox, I think we can all agree to presuppose why the elementary particles cohere. — Adrian

Thanks for keeping the debate alive.

In his TEDTalk, blogger and statistics whiz Nate Silver explained how race may have affected the 2008 election. In this interview with the TEDBlog he further explores the relationships between urban spaces, race and President Obama.

Here’s an excerpt:

I see Obama as being our first urban president in a long time. His racial heritage is mixed, he was raised by a single mother, he’s lived in several places, from Indonesia to Hawaii to the Midwest. For many people living in our cities, especially in their 20s and 30s, this is normal. I think urban-ness is the real factor.

Read the full interview, after the jump >>What did you think of your TEDTalk? Have you watched it yet?

Actually, no. I haven’t watched it because I just hate watching myself, but I’ve heard the video quality is excellent. So, thanks.

What about actually being and speaking at TED? What did you think of that?

I was definitely flattered to be there. I had friends who said, “If you’re lucky, you’ll get invited.” It was really cool to be surrounded by bright people doing things in very different walks of life. It’s not often that you get to be around that many different types of people, left and right-brained, young and old, and all very bright.

I don’t get intimidated easily, but this was a fairly intimidating caliber of people as well as the presentations themselves. Also, I went on the last day and there were advantages and disadvantages to that. It gave me more time to prepare, but as the time for my talk approached I began to have this impending sense of doom. And of course, as I said, watching the other presentations was most intimidating.

Have you seen the comments on your talk, either on TED.com or on the TED facebook page?

No, not yet. I hope they’re good. What are they?

Well, there are definitely a lot of positive comments, but there are also some strong reactions on the topic of race, in general. Did you expect strong reactions?

Well, I think anytime I’m discussing politics in general, I expect strong reactions. And, when you include race with politics — definitely.

But everything had to be discussed in a nine minute presentation, and I was trying to present these very complex issues in a way that does them justice, but also knowing that I could not dot every i and cross every t. People sometimes assume that because I haven’t emphasized something, I haven’t thought if it. If they want more detailed discussions, they should definitely read my blog.

In your talk, you identified two factors with strong predictive relationships to racism, education and neighborhoods, but you didn’t talk much about the role of education. Could you speak to that now?

In some ways, it seems self-evident that racism is in part born out of ignorance, and a sound liberal education should make you familiar with others who are different. Even the mere act of going to college means you interact with people from different parts of the state and country. College is the most artificially diverse environment available to us. My experience was that interacting with my classmates was the most important part of my undergraduate experience.

With respect to the points you made about neighborhoods, some of the commenters have asked about correlation and causation, specifically whether racism is caused by living in a monoracial neighborhood, or whether more racist people move to monoracial neighborhoods. What do you think about that?

I think the arrows point both ways. It’s hard to draw causalities. There’s a book by Bill Bishop, called “The Big Sort,” that shows that people have become more likely to choose their neighborhood on ideological grounds. If you have a preference to be surrounded by only white people, you can be. It’s hard to separate out the causalities.

When you collected and analyzed this data, and realized that there were substantial proportions of people whose votes were influenced by race, did you find this at all disheartening?

Well, first of all, I think it was evident throughout the 2008 campaign that race was playing a part. The media attempted not to make too much of it, but it was there.

But, I don’t know how you can be too disheartened when it was only 40 years ago that everyone in the country was truly given the right to participate, under the Civil Rights Act — so that’s within one generation. I don’t know how we can be disheartened when today we can elect a black President. However, we have to be careful as some people have gone too far in the opposite direction because Obama won, and have become complacent.

Interestingly, among the states with more racially biased voting, the states where Obama campaigned were less biased. I think this is because of familiarity — because of his visibility, Obama became a virtual neighbor. It will be interesting to see what happens in 2012, to see how many people are still this way. He will be very familiar after four years as President.

I found your theory on the cul de sac design of suburbs encouraging racism very interesting. How did you come up with this idea?

I’m just a big fan of urban spaces. I lived in Chicago for years, and then just a few weeks ago I moved to Brooklyn. Personally, I find it more interesting to interact with the people in my neighborhood. But I’m certainly not an urban planner or an urban designer.

One thing that I didn’t have a chance to discuss during the talk was how well Obama performed in urban areas, especially among urban white voters. The fact that he’s from a major city is very unusual.

I see Obama as being our first urban president in a long time. His racial heritage is mixed, he was raised by a single mother, he’s lived in several places, from Indonesia to Hawaii to the Midwest. For many people living in our cities, especially in their 20s and 30s, this is normal. I think urban-ness is the real factor.

If you had a little more time for your TEDTalk, is there something else you would have liked to say?

In a nine-minute presentation, you’re trying to give a tasting menu, to give somewhat of an overview instead of focusing on one specific point. I found a curve and put it together and a lot of the numbers had to be overlooked. I would encourage people to visit my website for more detail.

On Margaret Wertheim’s TEDTalk: The beautiful math that links coral, crochet and hyperbolic geometry:
Dear All — thanks for kind comments below. It’s been rewarding/humbling to watch the roll-out of my TED talk. It’s a uniquely terrifying experience to stand on the TED stage – ohmygod (one thinks) can I live up to all this? These are the Really smart people: What if I FLOP? So thanks for the lovely feedback … — Margaret Wertheim

On Niels Diffrient’s TEDTalk: Rethinking the way we sit down:
$1400 for a chair? It looks worth it, but whew…. — Allan, via facebook

don’t worry, in a year or two someone will rip off the design and it’ll be available for under $100… capitalism — Alison via facebook

And it will be made in China. — Shantanu via facebook

On Erik Hersman’s TEDTalk: How texting and GoogleMaps helped Kenyans survive crisis
TED is porn – mind porn! — Mads via facebook

I heard TED can be as addictive as porn to some. — Elizabeth via facebook

Hey, I met my girlfriend on TED.com, don’t knock it! — Michah via facebook

anyone at all interested in the fact that these guys just revolutionized citizen reporting and information in crisis situations? anyone? — Tim via facebook

On Nate Silver’s TEDTalk: Picking apart the puzzle of racism in elections:
Interaction with people who don’t look like you matters. Great TED talk by Nate Silver, even with proposed changes — djmarquardt, via Twitter

Thanks for talking to us, and each other.

Watch Nate Silver’s talk on TED.com, where you can download this TEDTalk, rate it, comment on it and find other talks and performances from our archive of 400+ TEDTalks.

Get TED delivered:
Subscribe to the TEDTalks video podcast via RSS >>
Subscribe to the iTunes video podcast
Subscribe to the iTunes audio podcast
Get updates via Twitter >>
Join our Facebook fan page >>

Subscribe to the TED Blog >>