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Everything Is Predictable

How Bayesian Statistics Explain Our World

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Everything Is Predictable

Written by: Tom Chivers
Narrated by: Tom Chivers
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A “fascinating, witty, and perspective-shifting” (Oliver Burkeman, New York Times bestselling author) tour of Bayes’s theorem and its global impact on modern life from the acclaimed science writer and author ofThe Rationalist’s Guide to the Galaxy.

At its simplest, Bayes’s theorem describes the probability of an event, based on prior knowledge of conditions that might be related to the event. But in Everything Is Predictable, Tom Chivers lays out how it affects every aspect of our lives. He explains why highly accurate screening tests can lead to false positives and how a failure to account for it in court has put innocent people in jail. A cornerstone of rational thought, many argue that Bayes’s theorem is a description of almost everything.

But who was the man who lent his name to this theorem? How did an 18th-century Presbyterian minister and amateur mathematician uncover a theorem that would affect fields as diverse as medicine, law, and artificial intelligence?

“Witty, lively, and best of all, extremely nerdy” (Tim Harford, author of The Undercover Economist), Everything Is Predictable is an entertaining and accessible illustration of how a single compelling idea can have far reaching consequences. Mathematics Computer Science
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It’s well written, agued and read by the author. Still some of it is pretty heavy and I haven’t seen the print edition but perhaps there are some visuals to help with some of the explanations. I do wish there was a little more time on explaining the frequentist positions so I could balance the Bayesian perspective against it.

Would recommend regardless of the few hangups. I have raised my prior belief that Bayesian is a useful model at least 15 percent.

Great book but might be better in print form?

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