America's Most Beloved Stats Nerd Predicts a Rourke Oscar Win

Julian Schnabel for The Village Voice

Nate Silver, the human calculator behind FiveThirtyEight -- the magic blog that predicted the presidential race -- has now moved into the Oscar-predicting biz for New York. He's predicting  in the Best Actor catagory a win for Mickey Rourke over Sean Penn, who at one time seemed a lock.

How confidant is he in a Rourke win? Exactly 71.1 percent sure. Told you he was a human calculator. But he's leaving little room for doubt in the Best Picture and Best Director races. He gives Slumdog Millionaire a 99.0 percent chance of winning, and the film's director a 99.7 percent chance of taking home a statuette.

[NY Mag via Gawker]