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The Signal and the Noise: Why So Many Predictions Fail - But Some Don't by Nate Silver
The Signal and the Noise ...in 30 Minutes is the essential guide to quickly understanding the fundamental components of prediction outlined in Nate Silver's bestselling book, The Signal and the Noise: Why So Many Predictions Fail - but Some Don't.
Understand the key ideas behind The Signal and the Noise in a fraction of the time:
* 13 chapter-by-chapter synopses
* 34 essential insights and takeaways
* 13 illustrative case studies
In The Signal and the Noise bestselling author, political analyst, and statistician Nate Silver investigates the fundamentals of forecasting and answers why too much information can be misleading.
Exploring a variety of fields, ranging from politics to poker to Wall Street and global warming, The Signal and the Noise explores why some forecasts are successful and, perhaps more telling, why so many fail. Silver posits that better forecasters possess a superior understanding of uncertainty and are driven by truth and humility while overconfidence can lead to failure.
Presenting a framework for what constitutes a good forecast, The Signal and the Noise provides insight and tools for understanding how to successfully utilize Big Data and decipher meaningful signals from random noise.
A 30 Minute Expert Summary of The Signal and the Noise
Designed for those whose desire to learn exceeds the time they have available, The Signal and the Noise summary helps readers quickly and easily become experts ...in 30 minutes.
Understand the key ideas behind The Signal and the Noise in a fraction of the time:
* 13 chapter-by-chapter synopses
* 34 essential insights and takeaways
* 13 illustrative case studies
In The Signal and the Noise bestselling author, political analyst, and statistician Nate Silver investigates the fundamentals of forecasting and answers why too much information can be misleading.
Exploring a variety of fields, ranging from politics to poker to Wall Street and global warming, The Signal and the Noise explores why some forecasts are successful and, perhaps more telling, why so many fail. Silver posits that better forecasters possess a superior understanding of uncertainty and are driven by truth and humility while overconfidence can lead to failure.
Presenting a framework for what constitutes a good forecast, The Signal and the Noise provides insight and tools for understanding how to successfully utilize Big Data and decipher meaningful signals from random noise.
A 30 Minute Expert Summary of The Signal and the Noise
Designed for those whose desire to learn exceeds the time they have available, The Signal and the Noise summary helps readers quickly and easily become experts ...in 30 minutes.
46 pages, Paperback
First published November 20, 2012
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Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews
July 20, 2013
I read this book on my kindle and at 60 per cent competed, I thought, another 40 per cent to go? Haven’t I read enough about the “art and science of prediction”? I was happily surprised to move to the next page and see a “concluding” section, followed by many pages of footnotes. That experience tells you something about my ambivalent reaction to this book.
The book is interesting enough, though, and I learned a good deal about how we attempt to predict the future, a concern that all of us have, one of the most basic interests being that of the weather. A lot of our thoughts on the future exist in a state of “noise”, lots of informaiont that is indeterminate and confused. It’s to Silver’s credit that he clears away some of the underbrush of confusion and shows us pathways to making progress in predicting the future in such areas as politics, the stock market, weather and more generally climate change, earthquakes, pastimes such as baseball, poker, and chess, our health, terrorist attacks, and most anything you can think of where the probability of future actions affects your present behavior.
Silver concentrates on statistical analysis , in showing what statistics can and cannot predict. He pays homage to the ideas of Thomas Bayes, an l8th century British mathematician who stressed that new information must always be factored into statistical calculations. That seems obvious enough in theory, but isn’t so apparent in practice. The amount of knowledge in the information age is always increasing, usually faster than we can assimilate it. When we miss details we need to include in statistical projections we often end up with wildly inaccurate predictions. One of the areas, though, where we’ve made most progress is in weather predicting which by its nature has to include new data every minute of every day.
One concept that I thought helped explain most of Silver’s examples, and they are many and varied, is that of “overfitting” and “underfitting.” In overfitting, statistical models are ‘fit” to match past observations. These models are based on too much extraneous data , “noise,” rather than finding an underlying structure. In “underfitting”, not enough data is captured in the model to be of any help in making predictons.
Part of the problem, in a controlled environment to be sure, but one that applies to all areas of prediction is explained in the game of poker. A good player takes into account, intuitively using Bayesian logic, as many factors as he can, sorting out the “noise” from the “signals” and will make good predictions about the unknown cards that will be played. But in spite of this, due to chance, he may still lose big hands on which he has bet the bank. He has played well, that is, predicted well, and still lost. The point is that the element of randomness and chance in the universe may still rule our lives, no matter how well we plan to know the unknown. As Donald Rumsfeld so inelegantly put it, speaking of the Iraq war, “stuff happens.” Humility is always needed.
Back to my original reaction, I liked individual sections of the book, but as somebody commented, it was a little like reading an owner’s instruction manual. Lots of things in it one should know about this “vehicle” we drive into the future, but to read it straight through? However, it could have been my fault for my flagging interest. I’m just glad the book wasn’t forty per cent thicker.
The book is interesting enough, though, and I learned a good deal about how we attempt to predict the future, a concern that all of us have, one of the most basic interests being that of the weather. A lot of our thoughts on the future exist in a state of “noise”, lots of informaiont that is indeterminate and confused. It’s to Silver’s credit that he clears away some of the underbrush of confusion and shows us pathways to making progress in predicting the future in such areas as politics, the stock market, weather and more generally climate change, earthquakes, pastimes such as baseball, poker, and chess, our health, terrorist attacks, and most anything you can think of where the probability of future actions affects your present behavior.
Silver concentrates on statistical analysis , in showing what statistics can and cannot predict. He pays homage to the ideas of Thomas Bayes, an l8th century British mathematician who stressed that new information must always be factored into statistical calculations. That seems obvious enough in theory, but isn’t so apparent in practice. The amount of knowledge in the information age is always increasing, usually faster than we can assimilate it. When we miss details we need to include in statistical projections we often end up with wildly inaccurate predictions. One of the areas, though, where we’ve made most progress is in weather predicting which by its nature has to include new data every minute of every day.
One concept that I thought helped explain most of Silver’s examples, and they are many and varied, is that of “overfitting” and “underfitting.” In overfitting, statistical models are ‘fit” to match past observations. These models are based on too much extraneous data , “noise,” rather than finding an underlying structure. In “underfitting”, not enough data is captured in the model to be of any help in making predictons.
Part of the problem, in a controlled environment to be sure, but one that applies to all areas of prediction is explained in the game of poker. A good player takes into account, intuitively using Bayesian logic, as many factors as he can, sorting out the “noise” from the “signals” and will make good predictions about the unknown cards that will be played. But in spite of this, due to chance, he may still lose big hands on which he has bet the bank. He has played well, that is, predicted well, and still lost. The point is that the element of randomness and chance in the universe may still rule our lives, no matter how well we plan to know the unknown. As Donald Rumsfeld so inelegantly put it, speaking of the Iraq war, “stuff happens.” Humility is always needed.
Back to my original reaction, I liked individual sections of the book, but as somebody commented, it was a little like reading an owner’s instruction manual. Lots of things in it one should know about this “vehicle” we drive into the future, but to read it straight through? However, it could have been my fault for my flagging interest. I’m just glad the book wasn’t forty per cent thicker.
October 16, 2025
Nate Silver teaches the crucial difference between meaningful data and random noise. A must-read for anyone trying to make predictions in a system governed by probability.
February 8, 2013
This condensation of Nate Silver's book helps bring the author's views on statistics and political prediction to a larger audience. Instead of trying to pick out tips from a full-length book, those who want to glean from the text advice on predicting markets or politics can find everything neatly summed up at the end of each chapter. However, it also keeps the author's own words and explanations wherever possible, so you can understand things the way he wants you to. I found the summary to be indispensable when looking for the vital point on political analysis that the full-length book spread out.
December 12, 2012
Nothing but the facts is all you will get with this extensive blow by blow of Nate Silver's book. The Signal and the Noise.. in 30 Minutes breaks down the brain bending world of political and economic forecasting without spending $40,000 on a degree. From Hedgehogs to Foxes, to Moneyball, each metaphor of style and wit brings you closer to understanding. A fun, quick read and a perfect stocking stuffer for novice and enthusiasts alike.
August 15, 2013
Short. Succinct. But the OCD in me can't help thinking that maybe a few things were left out. Still, it's short and it even has a summary section on all chapters. Makes one wonder why anyone writes long books anymore when it can be distilled. In short, be a fox not a hedgehog and always examine your personal biases lest it affects your decisions. The numbers don't lie but the numbers reader could read them wrong.
Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews