How to predict the future | Book Insights on The Signal and the Noise by Nate Silver

Book Insights Podcast

*Our brains are machines that are always simplifying and approximating, focusing on some detail that captures our attention. Those details may be important, but we are only a brain within a vast universe, and our biases often lead us to bad predictions.

*Drawing on his groundbreaking forecasting work, Nate Silver surveys the field of prediction and discusses how to identify a meaningful signal in amongst a barrage of data.

*Only forecasting that arises from many points of data, both quantitative and qualitative, and that tries to take account of all biases, is likely to be correct.

*The only way to become better at forecasts, Silver says, is to make more of them.

*Anyone in the field of prediction has to be constantly taking in not just new points of data, but getting more and more rigorous about how they assess the data. Otherwise, you start to lose the signals for the noise.

Theme 1: Nate Silver and his Highly Successful Forecast Approach - 0:29

Theme 2: Poker, Baseball & Forecasting Things With Complex Causes and Inputs - 12:12

Theme 3: Examples Where Prediction Starts to Break Down - 22:25

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HEAR THE FULL INTERVIEWS MENTIONED IN TODAYS' EPISODE HERE:

YouTube. (2019). The Signal and the Noise - Nate Silver. [online] Available at: https://youtu.be/z4zhI9uLs4U?t=382.

Full Title: The Signal and the Noise: Why So Many Predictions Fail - But Some Don't

Year of Publication: 2012

Book Author: Nate Silver

To purchase the complete edition of this book click here: https://tinyurl.com/bdf3vevz

Book Insight Writer: Carl Dister

Editor: Tom Butler-Bowden

Producer: Gabe Mara

Production Manager: Karin Richey

Curator: Tom Butler-Bowden

Narrator: Kristi Burns