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Super Crunchers: How Anything Can Be Predicted
 
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Super Crunchers: How Anything Can Be Predicted (Hardcover)

by Ian Ayres (Author)
2.4 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (5 customer reviews)

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Product details

  • Hardcover: 272 pages
  • Publisher: John Murray (6 Sep 2007)
  • Language English
  • ISBN-10: 0719564638
  • ISBN-13: 978-0719564635
  • Product Dimensions: 23.6 x 15.4 x 2.8 cm
  • Average Customer Review: 2.4 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (5 customer reviews)
  • Amazon.co.uk Sales Rank: 260,500 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

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Product Description

Review

Groundbreaking ... Not only is it fun to read. It just may change the way you think'

(Stephen D Levitt co-author of Freakonomics )


Product Description

Companies used to rely on human experts and their years of experience to guide them. Now, cutting-edge organizations are mining the data and crunching numbers instead, to come up with more accurate, less biased predictions. As Freakonomics detailed, statistical analysis can reveal the secret levers of causation. But economist Ian Ayres argues that that’s only part of the story: super crunching is revolutionizing the way we all make decisions.

Beginning with examples of the mathematician who out-predicted wine buffs in determining the best vintages, and the sports scouts who now use statistics rather than intuition to pick winners, Super Crunchers exposes the world of data-miners, introducing the people and the techniques. It illuminates the hidden patterns all around us. No businessperson, academic, student, or consumer (statistically that’s everyone) should make another move without getting to grips with thinking-by-numbers – the new way to be smart, savvy and statistically superior.

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Super Crunchers: How Anything Can Be Predicted
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Customer Reviews

5 Reviews
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Average Customer Review
2.4 out of 5 stars (5 customer reviews)
 
 
 
 
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews

 
13 of 13 people found the following review helpful:
2.0 out of 5 stars Good concept, poor execution, 27 Oct 2007
The concept was reasonable: to show how statistical analysis was changing the way in which the businesses and governments operated. The author also set out the relevant topics sensibly; chapters covered such issues as why this is occurring now, random samples, the reaction of experts to such analysis (with an extra focus on the medical profession) and the legal/ moral issues that this type of analysis raises. The trouble with this book is that the writing style is too simplistic. It's not obvious whether this is the fault of the editor or the author or a combination of the two. Various examples of data analysis are used without it being clear what point the author is trying to make. The result is that at the end of many chapters it's unclear what the author's intent was. There are two other aspects of the writing which are irritating. First, every person whose work is described in the book is given a brief biography which reads as if they were some form of matinee idol. Secondly, the author uses the opportunity to air some personal professional disputes which for anyone outside the argument is tedious. Overall, it's a book you may buy at an airport to read on a flight and throw away
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11 of 11 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars overconfident, but worth it, 16 Oct 2007
By Dean Swift (Hertfordshire) - See all my reviews
What this book does well is to show how valuable numerical information can be if you know how to analyse it properly, and how unreliable human judgment can be compared to what the data can tell us. The examples are well chosen and telling. Where it goes too far is in expressing almost unqualified belief that the number stuff trumps everything else, all the time. Contrary to the title, not everything can be predicted. Specifically, the sudden turns of events, in markets or social behaviour (which are often what we are most interested in) are not predictable on the basis of past patterns. By defintion, surprises are not predictable. And there always has to be a human doing the modelling, working out the dynamics of any set of causal relationships. Sometimes, these people get it wrong. Then it's the old case of "rubbish in, rubbish out." But though he has pushed the argument too far, he is interesting, imaginative and persuasive that the balance could be tipped a little further than it now is, towards making better use of statistical data.
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18 of 24 people found the following review helpful:
1.0 out of 5 stars Anecdotal Assembly, 7 Sep 2007
By Crispin Batten (South Africa) - See all my reviews
Tiresome. One lengthy anecdote after the other -- albeit, some of interest. No conceptual depth. Surprising that such work can come from an associate of Yale University. However, just as the author "supercrunched" the choice of the title, he may have used the same approach in order to determine what may best sell to a mass of undiscerning readers.
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Most Recent Customer Reviews

2.0 out of 5 stars Does not tell the full story - needs an update!
This read must have been compelling a couple of years ago. But the 'super crunching' this book advocates - didn't do a good job in predicting the credit crunch. Read more
Published 8 months ago by Tareq W. Muhmood

4.0 out of 5 stars Persuasive
This book is not as poor as the previous reviews suggest. It offers a persuasive account of the potential of mass numeric data in coming to better (evidence-based) decisions. Read more
Published 13 months ago by Avid

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