A smart thinking classic, the political forecaster's unputdownable explanation of how we can all develop better foresight ranges from economic shocks to the high stakes world of the poker table.
Every time we choose a route to work, decide whether to go on a second date, or set aside money for a rainy day, we are making a prediction about the future. Yet from the financial crisis to ecological disasters, we routinely fail to foresee hugely significant events, often at great cost to society. The rise of 'big data' has the potential to help us predict the future, yet much of it is misleading, useless or distracting.
In The Signal and the Noise, the New York Times political forecaster Nate Silver, who accurately predicted the results of every state in the 2012 US election, reveals how we can all develop better foresight in an uncertain world. From the stock market to the poker table, from earthquakes to the economy, he takes us on an enthralling insider's tour of the high-stakes world of forecasting, showing how we can all learn to detect the true signals amid a noise of data.
Publisher: Penguin Books Ltd
ISBN: 9780141975658
Number of pages: 544
Weight: 371 g
Dimensions: 198 x 129 x 23 mm
Outstanding... I was hooked - Tim Harford, Financial Times
One of the more momentous books of the decade - The New York Times Book Review
A lucid explanation of how to think probabilistically - Guardian
The inhabitants of Westminster are speed-reading The Signal and the Noise... They will find the book remarkable and rewarding - Sunday Telegraph
Is there anything now that Nate Silver could tell us that we wouldn't believe? - Jonathan Freedland
Fascinating... our age's Brunel - Bryan Appleyard, Sunday Times
A surprisingly accessible peek into the world of mathematical probability - Daily Telegraph
The Galileo of number crunchers - Independent
A 34-year old Delphic Oracle - Daily Beast
As a complete novice in reading this type of book, I was expecting to be slightly bogged down by facts and figures and phrases I wouldn't understand; however this wasn't even close to what actually... More
I love that there's a graph or table on nearly every page! Hopefully that won't put anyone off, as it's a very interesting read even if statistics are not your usual cup of tea - it's also full of... More
While I thoroughly enjoyed this book, I have to admit that the chapters which dealt with financial matters did go right over my head and left me feeling a bit stupid - but when Silver was looking a baseball, chess,... More
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