Book Review: The Signal and the Noise

The Signal and the Noise, by Nate Silver, is an excellent book on statistics. After he successfully predicted 50 of 50 states correctly in the 2012 Presidential Election, interest in his book has exploded.
Who should read this book?
Mr. Silver writes about a variety of topics and their connection to statistics. If you are interested in weather,climate, and earthquake predictions, poker, the stock market, sports and sports-related gambling, or computerized chess, this book is for you. You will probably see things in a different way. You may also become frustrated at the way the mainstream media covers these areas!

The main weakness is the way Mr. Silver presents Bayesian statistics. The tables of x, y, and z seem to make the concept more difficult, and his initial example, using a “cheating spouse” scenario is the lowpoint of this otherwise excellent book.

This entry was posted in Uncategorized. Bookmark the permalink.

Leave a Reply