Uncertainty is an essential and nonnegotiable part of a forecast. As we have found, sometimes an honest and accurate expression of the uncertainty is what has the potential to save property and lives. In other cases, as when trading stock options or wagering on an NBA team, you may be able to place bets on your ability to forecast the uncertainty accurately. However, there is another reason to quantify the uncertainty carefully and explicitly. It is essential to scientific progress, especially under Bayes’s theorem.
