Statistician, political forecaster and creator of the New York Times blog FiveThirtyEight, Nate Silver shot to world fame when he predicted the outcome of all 50 states in the 2012 US Elections. In his award-winning book, The Signal and the Noise, Silver highlights how mathematical probability and statistics can build models to predict the outcome of baseball matches, poker games, climate change and financial crashes. He appeared at the 2013 Edinburgh International Book Festival, in conversation with Steven Gale, to talk about his roller coaster year, data analysis and why, as a scientist, it is wise to stay out of the street fighting of American politics.