The Signal and the Noise book by Nate Silver out this month
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, 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.
http://www.amazon.com/The-Signal-Noise-Predictions-Fail-but/dp/159420411X/ref=wl_mb_hu_m_1_dp
Since Nate has us at a 79.8% chance of winning, I think he makes a lot of sense. Might be a good read, and hopefully he'll be on a few shows to explain his methods.
disclaimer: Nate Silver is the only thing between me and insanity this year. I simply can't believe nearly 50% of Americans buy into Romney's crap...
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