Ian H. Witten

Fortelling the future by adaptive modeling

Foretelling the future is a pastime that all of us enjoy, but is not normally viewed as a scientific activity. We would all like to be able to predict which horse will win a particular race or which stock will double next week. If we knew how to do that, we would not be writing this article. Yet it is often quite possible to predict the future—in a limited way—and to put the prediction to good use. By describing an expected, “normal” course of events, a good prediction focuses attention on how an unfolding event differs from the norm. In many cases this is more interesting than the events themselves.