
Mathematicians Predict the Future With Data From the Past - thetabyte
http://www.wired.com/wiredenterprise/2013/04/cliodynamics-peter-turchin/all/
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bitwize
In other news:

Man Crosses Atlantic by Expending Energy

Scientists Find that Virtually All Earth's Water is Wet

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

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shared4you
Exactly! This would be news if they predicted the future _without_ data from
the past.

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winestock
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."

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Tarential
Mitch Hedberg :) <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mitch_Hedberg>

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alirov
Here's a clip of that joke: <http://youtu.be/u6xaj2fC1jI?t=2m38s>

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weareconvo
You guys nailed it - Mitch's joke was indeed what I was thinking of when I
wrote the comment.

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

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kyzyl
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.

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

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kyzyl
Perhaps if one has a doctrate in model theory and has never strayed outside of
the abstract algebra/group theory realm, they might not be qualified to speak
on statistical problems. However, my experience has been that this is almost
never the case. The mathematics people I've known have been, for the most
part, extremely well versed in various forms of analysis, algebra, probability
and, yes, statistics. You might be surprised how a lot of the deep
mathematical concepts tie into statistical methods. There's more to it than
performing t-tests.

Comments like yours are more or less exactly what I was speaking about. What
makes you think that somebody with an advanced mathematics degree wouldn't
know about statistics? Because it's not in the title? Go kick down the door of
your local university math department and spring some statistics problems on
them. You'll probably come out with the answers.

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strangestchild
Perhaps your experience has been different from mine, maybe because I'm based
in the UK - I know that US education tends to be more generalised. Among my
friends with or pursuing postgraduate degrees in pure mathematical
disciplines, none have any particular knowledge of stats above the
undergraduate level. As a master's student, I wouldn't imagine I count for
much - but what I know about statistics could be written on the back of an
envelope. It's something I've been meaning to remedy for a while now. It's
possible that tenured professors have a wider breadth of knowledge than the
average PhD - and I admit that I wouldn't know if that were the case.

As for the depth of statistics as a field, and its reliance on other
disciplines - I agree entirely. I think pure mathematicians are far more
likely to be ignorant of statistics than statistical mathematicians are of,
for example, analysis.

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richardjordan
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.

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SkyMarshal
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>

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sodomizer
Please alert Hari Seldon.

