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

** The Prior ** Before reading this book, I thought there was a 70% chance I would rate this book 3 stars or higher.

** The Signal ** Silver’s chapter on Poker was interesting both from the perspective of statistics, but also about poker tactics and the metagame. I wish this were the core of the book. Also, the explanation of Bayes’ theorem was solid, as was the chapter on stocks.

** The Noise ** Everything else. [b:Superforecasting|23995360|Superforecasting The Art and Science of Prediction|Philip E. Tetlock|https://d.gr-assets.com/books/1435684424s/23995360.jpg|43596077] is MUCH better when talking about predictions, and much more engaging. Shiller’s book [b:Irrational Exuberance|100132|Irrational Exuberance|Robert J. Shiller|https://d.gr-assets.com/books/1384376065s/100132.jpg|96545] is better on stocks, even Rumsfeld’s biography [b:Known and Unknown: A Memoir|9403549|Known and Unknown A Memoir|Donald Rumsfeld|https://d.gr-assets.com/books/1439294323s/9403549.jpg|14287473] is better when talking about politics. It felt like Silver took a lot of shortcuts and made claims about causality in multiple areas without sufficient evidence.

** The Result ** Read chapters 8, 10, and 11. Skip the rest. Better yet, just skip this book and read [b:Superforecasting|23995360|Superforecasting The Art and Science of Prediction|Philip E. Tetlock|https://d.gr-assets.com/books/1435684424s/23995360.jpg|43596077].

That’s 77% of the chapters that are below three stars for me. So let’s run some Bayesian inference, with the hypothesis that I would give this book >= 3 stars.

P (Hypothesis given evidence) = P (Evidence given Hypothesis) * P (Hypothesis) / P (Evidence)

.27 = .3 * .7 / (.77)

Now there is only a 27% chance of >= 3 stars.