The Signal and the Noise

Why So Many Predictions Fail - but Some Don't

By: Nate Silver

Narrated by: Mike Chamberlain

Length: 16 hrs and 21 mins

Publisher's summary

Updated for 2020 with a new Preface by Nate Silver.

Nate Silver built an innovative system for predicting baseball performance, predicted the 2008 election within a hair’s breadth, and became a national sensation as a blogger - all by the time he was 30. He solidified his standing as the nation's foremost political forecaster with his near perfect prediction of the 2012 election. Silver is the founder and editor in chief of the website FiveThirtyEight.

Drawing on his own groundbreaking work, Silver examines the world of prediction, investigating how we can distinguish a true signal from a universe of noisy data. Most predictions fail, often at great cost to society, because most of us have a poor understanding of probability and uncertainty. Both experts and laypeople mistake more confident predictions for more accurate ones. But overconfidence is often the reason for failure. If our appreciation of uncertainty improves, our predictions can get better too. This is the “prediction paradox”: The more humility we have about our ability to make predictions, the more successful we can be in planning for the future.

In keeping with his own aim to seek truth from data, Silver visits the most successful forecasters in a range of areas, from hurricanes to baseball to global pandemics, from the poker table to the stock market, from Capitol Hill to the NBA. He explains and evaluates how these forecasters think and what bonds they share. What lies behind their success? Are they good - or just lucky? What patterns have they unraveled? And are their forecasts really right? He explores unanticipated commonalities and exposes unexpected juxtapositions. And sometimes, it is not so much how good a prediction is in an absolute sense that matters but how good it is relative to the competition. In other cases, prediction is still a very rudimentary - and dangerous - science.

Silver observes that the most accurate forecasters tend to have a superior command of probability, and they tend to be both humble and hardworking. They distinguish the predictable from the unpredictable, and they notice a thousand little details that lead them closer to the truth. Because of their appreciation of probability, they can distinguish the signal from the noise.

With everything from the health of the global economy to our ability to fight terrorism dependent on the quality of our predictions, Nate Silver’s insights are an essential listen.

©2012 Nate Silver (P)2012 Penguin Audio

Critic reviews

"One of the more momentous books of the decade." (The New York Times Book Review)

"Mr. Silver, just 34, is an expert at finding signal in noise.... Lively prose - from energetic to outraged...illustrates his dos and don’ts through a series of interesting essays that examine how predictions are made in fields including chess, baseball, weather forecasting, earthquake analysis and politics...[the] chapter on global warming is one of the most objective and honest analyses I’ve seen...even the noise makes for a good read." (New York Times)

"A serious treatise about the craft of prediction - without academic mathematics - cheerily aimed at lay readers. Silver's coverage is polymathic, ranging from poker and earthquakes to climate change and terrorism." (New York Review of Books)

Essential read for inquirers

Although this book is several years old , it has Stood The test of. I highly recommend it to those who are in search of truth and evidence based inquiries.

It's Ok - Nassim Taleb is far better on the Topic

Nate Silver is trying make a "Great Course" book and that is the style and organization.

But there are far better books about each section, so you get an encyclopedia discount by purchasing this book. It is an ok book for that.

But you can find better baseball books, better betting books, and better investing books. When it comes to a final message, it is very muddled and unclear. Where Taleb is very clear.

Good information, but very repetitive

Nate Silver has a fairly straight-forward style and gives lots of good information and stories illustrating his points. The narrator's tone occasionally seems terse, bordering on annoyed. This might have been a result of having to repeat some of the same language many times over.

Fascinating but repetitive

He makes the points multiple times.

He makes the points more than once

He's a bit redundant.

Lots of great data.

Six Stars !

Everyone needs to read the chapter on climate change predictions - to cut through the disinformation and clutter coming from both sides of the political spectrum.

Excellent Listen

Much of this book seems obvious, but it is amazing how easy everyone can get caught up in the noise. I found it easy to stick with and enjoyed it very much.

Exactly what you'd want

This book is exactly what you'd expect based on the title. An explanation of what is involved in statistical modeling, along with real examples of what causes a prediction to fail, as well as what helps a predictive model to be more accurate.

I have a fair amount of training in the hypothesis testing school of statistics, but am far less experienced with modeling. I appreciate the criticism Nate has for hypothesis testing, and found his explanation of "over modeling" to be particularly edifying. I'd suggest this book to anyone that has any desire to understand the modeling process, or to understand why certain modeling efforts are so fruitless (Earthquake, Economics, Etc.).

Not just statistics

I became aware of Nate Silver during the last election and was amazed at his sensible, no nonsense approach to polling. I had expected this book to be technical and statistics oriented, but it turned out to be a particularly fascinating insight into his life, how he got to where he is now, and of course a lot of explanations about statistics, how they work, and how things can so easily go wrong.

It was a great listen. His style of writing is excellent and he tells a good story. Well worth the time.

Some really important information, but oh so wordy

What did you love best about The Signal and the Noise?

Nate gives us some imortant information about both the math and human limitations behind bad predictions. That may sound useless untill you remeber that everything from sports betting to the communists trying another scheme to start their economy moving is wrapped in a prediction. When we start a business or try to stop the next Muslim extremist attack, we are predicting. This book will help do it better.

If you could give The Signal and the Noise a new subtitle, what would it be?

We make important predictions every day. How to do it better.

Any additional comments?

The author is a liberal to the core so he shows some of the same blind spots that he points out in others, but seems to challenge himself not to. Unless you are a huge baseball fan you will get bored in the hours of inside baseball (pun) and some of his other examples, but it is where he cut his teeth. But since we need at least the basic point of this book so at least get an abrieviated version.

Strong beginning and ending

The book starts strong with an interesting historical narrative about Protestantism and the advent of the printing press. Then it sort of meanders through some anecdotes of failed or successful predictions for what seemed like most of the body, the conclusion was also good, though felt like it should have been supported by clearer points made in the body.

I came away thinking the conclusion as a proposition was well written and fairly compelling, and what I took as weakness in the body might have been signs that the book was penned opportunistically on the heels of Silver's media attention rather than bringing anything new to the discussion about social psychology and the lack of statistical reasoning in the general (US) public.