Statistician Nate Silver doesn't
believe in gay conformity any more than straight conformity.
In a profile with gay glossy Out
declaring Silver its
“person of year,” Silver, 34, explains that he doesn't want to be
known as the gay statistician.
“To my friends, I'm kind of sexually
gay but ethnically straight,” he said.
He added that he considers conformity –
gay or straight – to be perfidious.
“For me, I think the most important
distinguishing characteristic is that I'm independent-minded. I'm
sure that being gay encouraged the independent-mindedness, but that
same independent-mindedness makes me a little bit skeptical of parts
of gay culture, I suppose.”
“I don't want to be Nate Silver, gay
statistician, any more than I want to be known as a white,
half-Jewish statistician who lives in New York,” he
said after asking why can't Keith Haring just be an American
artist?
Increasing notoriety is a concern after
Silver accurately predicted the 2012 presidential election in all 50
states, leaving conservatives who had resisted, and even mocked, his
forecast fuming.
Silver's book The
Signal and the Noise: Why Most Predictions Fail – But Some Don't
has received widespread praise from critics.