The model thinker : what you need to know to make data work for you
Scott E. Page
- New York: Basic Books, 2021
- xv, 445 pages : illustrations (black and white) ; 21 cm
The many-model thinker Why model? The science of many models Modeling human actors Normal distributions : the bell curve Power-law distributions : long tails Linear models Concavity and convexity Models of value and power Network models Broadcast, diffusion, and contagion Entropy : modeling uncertainty Random walks Path dependence Local interaction models Lyapunov functions and equilibria Markov models Systems dynamics models Threshold models with feedbacks Spatial and hedonic choice Game theory models times three Models of cooperation Collective action problems Mechanism design Signaling models Models of learning Multi-armed bandit problems Rugged-landscape models Opioids, inequality, and humility
From the stock market to genomics laboratories, census figures to marketing email blasts, we are awash with data. But as anyone who has ever opened up a spreadsheet packed with seemingly infinite lines of data knows, numbers aren't enough: we need to know how to make those numbers talk. In The Model Thinker, social scientist Scott E. Page shows us the mathematical, statistical, and computational models--from linear regression to random walks and far beyond--that can turn anyone into a genius. At the core of the book is Page's "many-model paradigm," which shows the reader how to apply multiple models to organize the data, leading to wiser choices, more accurate predictions, and more robust designs. The Model Thinker provides a toolkit for business people, students, scientists, pollsters, and bloggers to make them better, clearer thinkers, able to leverage data and information to their advantage.
9781541675711
Social sciences--Mathematical models Social systems--Mathematical models Complexity (Philosophy) Information visualization Data mining