Nate Silver's The Signal And The Noise

In the book “the Signal and the noise”, author Nate Silver talks about prediction from many different angles. Silver explains how prediction is a part of our everyday life and how it affects us. From math to history, inside of a class room or on a court/field, prediction is something we deal with on a day to day basis unconsciously. Silver talks about the benefits of failure and how failure is helpful in the long run with making predictions. Throughout the years we have made progress with predictions. The book explains how to make a proper (educated) prediction. Prior to reading this book I had no previous knowledge of Nate Silver. I was unaware of his predictions, websites, books, etc. When the class was assigned to read the book I was really confused as to how this book would tie into anything we had learned in the class. When I went to purchase the book the lady at Barnes and Nobles told me that the book was located in the Science section. I was even more confused. Once I began to the read the book I quickly began to understand why this book is significant. Not simply for the class, but for all Political Science majors as a whole. In the first few chapters of the book, Silver talks about recent financial controversies caused by the government based on predictions. In chapter one …show more content…
No matter how accurate or inaccurate a forecast may be; what the public decides to do with the information given to them is their prerogative. Weather predictions are formed from lots of evidence and tests. A conclusion is tested multiple times before being broadcasted to the population. On the contrary; the public decides how they want to interpret the information given to them. Hurricane Katrina was detected in enough time for the city to evacuate, the mayor and the negligence of the people living in the city caused for a way worse