Super Crunchers Analysis

Summary/Review
Super Crunchers describes the importance of using numbers and statistics to replace or complement traditional methods of intuition in describing and predicting information. Through the use of mostly regression and hypothesis testing, Ian shows how finding trends using this information and the prevalence of big data (especially through the explosion of information from the internet) are shaping the way companies are evaluating data and making choices from this data. Ian shows how this use of trends in big data can be found in every industry. Starting off with wine, he shows how future wine quality can be predicted though statistical evaluation of current crops of grapes and the climate that they were produced in. He takes us through the use of credit cards, the decisions people make, and how credit card companies try to predict the future purchases of consumers, and when to keep an eye out for questionable purchases (such purchases can anticipate potential divorce or bankruptcies). He also shows how through the internet, search engines such as Google have vast amounts of information, and that with proper analysis can even predict behavior. On a side note, I read an interesting article about how Google claims that it can predict movie box office earnings by using these techniques. One last example (among many) that I found interesting is the Moneyball use of regression and statistics in baseball, and how being able to analyze this data well was more effective that simple intuition techniques. Overall, this was an interesting read that furthered the basic notion that I had about statistics, regression, and big data: that there is a lot of unfiltered data that, with the right analysis, can tell us much more about trends, our decisions, and possibly about future behavior/actions. I would definitely recommend this book, but in the same way that the professor did: by