The Art of Uncertainty
How to Navigate Chance, Ignorance, Risk and Luck
David Spiegelhalter
‘Probably the UK’s greatest living statistician’ Telegraph
From the UK’s ‘statistical national treasure’, a clever and data-driven guide to how we can live with risk and uncertainty.
We live in a world where uncertainty is inevitable. How should we deal with what we don’t know? And what role do chance, luck and coincidence play in our lives?
David Spiegelhalter has spent his career dissecting data in order to understand risks and assess the chances of what might happen in the future. In The Art of Uncertainty, he gives readers a window onto how we can all do this better.
In engaging, crystal-clear prose, he takes us through the principles of probability, showing how it can help us think more analytically about everything from medical advice to pandemics and climate change forecasts, and explores how we can update our beliefs about the future in the face of constantly changing experience. Along the way, he explains why roughly 40% of football results come down to luck rather than talent, how the National Risk Register assesses near-term risks to the United Kingdom, and why we can be so confident that two properly shuffled packs of cards have never, ever been in the exact same order.
Drawing on a wide range of captivating real-world examples, this is an essential guide to navigating uncertainty while also having the humility to admit what we do not know.
First published by Penguin Press (UK) in September 2024
Reviews
National treasure status… Part philosophy, part mathematics, part history, [The Art of Uncertainty] is a thoughtful and engaging — without being patronising — introduction to the mathematics of the unknown
The Times
One of academia’s best communicators… this book…impose(s) some intellectual order on a subject area that is rife with incomprehension, imprecision, contradiction and creative obfuscation
Observer
This is, without doubt, the most beautifully crafted book of its kind. These pages are rich with stories from 50 years of hard earned wisdom, each packed with insight and bursting with wit and warmth. When put together there is an important and compelling narrative about uncertainty here, this is a book that challenges our assumptions and offers new perspectives on how to embrace it
Hannah Fry, author of HELLO WORLD
David Spiegelhalter is a national treasure, and this might be his wisest, most humane and most personal book. I urge you to read it
Tim Harford, author of HOW TO MAKE THE WORLD ADD UP
A superbly entertaining overview of uncertainty in all its manifestations
Professor David J Hand, author of THE IMPROBABILITY PRINCIPLE
The Art of Uncertainty contains a lifetime of wisdom from a true master. No one else can do what David Spiegelhalter does, and take this foggiest but most ubiquitous of human problems, then give it such order, rigour, and impeccable judgement. There’s science, philosophy, medicine, statistics… life… all wrapped in a light and human touch, with one-line insights to die for. I wish it had existed 40 years ago; I suspect it’ll still be keenly read in 40 years time
Michael Blastland, co-author of THE TIGER THAT ISN’T
This is a brilliant book. A must read for anyone who aspires to think intelligently about the world we live in. Uncertainty is all-pervasive: in our personal lives; in responding to social and political issues; in sorting truth from fiction; and in understanding and mitigating global challenges. David Spiegelhalter provides the tools for thinking about all aspects of uncertainty in a rational way
Sir Adrian Smith FRS