The Signal and the Noise

Nate Silver is a statistician and political forecaster at The New York Times who became a national sensation in the United States when his predictions during the 2008 presidential election trumped most mainstream polls. He is a contributor to The New York Times Magazine and has appeared as a commentator on CNN and MSNBC. He has spoken at TED and SXSW, and was named one of TIME's 100 Most Influential People in the world.

Outstanding... fun to read... Silver has produced a signal that is a pleasure to follow -- Tim Harford Financial Times Engagingly written... wholly satisfying... one of the more momentous books of the decade The New York Times Book Review Fascinating... Statisticians are to our age what engineers were to the Victorians, the makers of the particular forms of truth we value and crave. Nate Silver, to pursue the analogy, is being tipped to be our age's Brunel -- Bryan Appleyard Sunday Times Balanced, intelligent and erudite Spectator Is there anything now that Nate Silver could tell us that we wouldn't believe? Jonathan Freedland In this important book, Nate Silver explains why the performance of experts varies from prescient to useless and why we must plan for the unexpected. Must reading for anyone who cares about what might happen next Richard Thaler, author of Nudge The inhabitants of Westminster are speed-reading The Signal and the Noise by Nate Silver, the New York Times statistician who called the election with cool accuracy. They will find the book remarkable and rewarding -- Sunday Telegraph Matthew d'Ancona The Galileo of number crunchers Independent A surprisingly accessible peek into the world of mathematical probability -- Daily Telegraph A whirlwind tour of the success and failure of predictions in a wide variety of fields... Mr. Silver's breezy style makes even the most difficult statistical material accessible. What is more, his arguments and examples are painstakingly researched Wall Street Journal Engaging... Silver displays a knack not just for mining data but for explaining his thinking in an accessible manner Bloomberg A supremely valuable resource for anyone who wants to make good guesses about the future, or who wants to assess the guesses made by others. In other words, everyone The Boston Globe Engaging and sophisticated... [An] entertaining popularization of a subject that scares many people off Slate Here's a prediction: after you read The