Probably Not
Future Prediction Using Probability and Statistical Inference
Chapter One
AN INTRODUCTION TO PROBABILITY
PREDICTING THE FUTURE
The term Predicting the Future conjures up images of veiled women staring
into hazy crystal balls, or bearded men with darting eyes passing their hands
over cups of tea leaves, or something else equally humorously mysterious. We
call these people Fortune Tellers and relegate their "professions" to the
regime of carnival side-show entertainment, along with snake charmers and
the like. For party entertainment we bring out a Ouija board; everyone sits
around the board in a circle and watches the board extract its mysterious
"energy" from our hands while it answers questions about things to come.
On the other hand, we all seem to have firm ideas about the future based
on consistent patterns of events that we have observed. We are prett ... read full excerpt from Probably Not: Future Prediction Using Probability and Statistical Inference ebook
