Mathematicians Predict the Future With Data From the Past (opens in new tab)

(wired.com)

23 pointsthetabyte12y ago19 comments

19 comments

bitwize12y ago

In other news:

Man Crosses Atlantic by Expending Energy

Scientists Find that Virtually All Earth's Water is Wet

weareconvo12y ago

I mean... where else is the data going to come from? The future?

shared4you12y ago

Exactly! This would be news if they predicted the future without data from the past.

winestock12y ago

I forget which comedian made this joke: "I hate it when people excuse a bad picture saying that it was taken when they were younger. Every picture taken of you was taken when you were younger. 'Here's a picture of me when I was older.' Let me see that camera."

3 more replies

darkhorn12y ago

By the way, if you want someone to make predictions for you from your data find a statistician, not mathematician.

kyzyl12y ago

I've yet to meet a good mathematician who didn't know more about probability and statistics than 90% of the folks who call themselves statisticians. Math is math.

This myth that math geeks can't tell you anything useful is rather irritating. Sure some of them speak very abstractly, and they might use a technique that you don't understand to draw their conclusion, by they can also save you a lot of time by identifying a fools errand early on. Proper grounding in maths not simply an academic exercise.

strangestchild12y ago

That seems a pretty strong generalisation. A doctorate in Model Theory doesn't give you the authority to talk stats.

1 more reply

aristo_mc12y ago

Or an Actuary

richardjordan12y ago

Love that term "elite overproduction". Never heard it before, but it makes sense to me. It definitely seems to describe a trend we see in this country. The political class, including lobbyists, consultants, pollsters and assorted hangers on, is so bloated it can only be fed by diverting resources through corruption and stagnation in the political process. This is something libertarians tend to warn about, while getting dismissed by partisans from both sides who only see it as a problem in any way when the other team is in power.

SkyMarshal12y ago

It's not just libertarians, people from both the right and the left are equally concerned about it [1]. The problem is more systemic than partisan.

[1]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5507814

sodomizer12y ago

Please alert Hari Seldon.

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