The Art of Uncertainty: How to Navigate Chance, Ignorance, Risk and Luck

I read most of this book but had to return it to the library before finishing it; I got up to Chapter 8 and then skipped ahead a few chapters to read about risk management and communicating about uncertainty—these were possibly the most interesting chapters for me. I appreciate that Spiegelhalter has put together a book that does its best to simplify the harder statistical math (using footnotes for the calculations was a good call), but if this is a simplified book I will need considerably more brainpower to handle a more complicated book. That said, I found the examples and writing style interesting and engaging. The author also disclosed the use of artificial intelligence, specifically large language models, for coding and show more researching, and stated that he checked and rewrote all of the AI’s claims. Given his extensive pre-AI experience as a researcher, I am inclined to grudgingly accept this disclaimer and at least appreciate that he did disclose it.

I may get a copy of this for more in-depth re-reading, but at minimum it does reinforce that I want to get a copy of his earlier book The Art of Statistics, which I knew I would not be able to do justice to if I borrowed it from the library. show less

Very good book. Lots of good ideas. Especially likes the recap of brier scores and how better to communicate risks.