The Power of Uncertainty | David Spiegelhalter

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Speaker D: Joseph Jaffe is not famous. Today I'm joined by Professor Sir David Spiegelhalter, frs, obe, which I know stands for Order of the British Empire. I don't think I've ever had a sir on my show before. Anyway, he's author of the Art of Uncertainty. We're diving into how to communicate evidence without losing trust. Embrace the chaos of uncertainty, and yes, have a little fun along the way. If you think certainty is an illusion, this one's for you. Let's get on with the show.

Speaker E: Oh, Joseph, you are still standing today. So we're gonna give you just a little bit of praise. A little bit of praise just for you. Well, you win. You survived. You know us, you know we got to give you praise. Sing that name. Sing that name. Oh, Justin, we praise you. And when we do, you make it rain. Oh, can I get an amen? Oh, you did it. We praise you.

Speaker F: Hi. This is Penn. Penn Jillette. Penn Teller. Big guy does magic. Smaller guy next to me, he does magic, too. He doesn't talk that much. I want to talk about, uh, Joseph Jaffe is not famous. And Joseph Jaffe is not famous. Joseph Jaffe is wicked not famous. Joseph Jaffe is superlatively not famous. And for good and sufficient reason. I mean, maybe his guests are, uh, famous. Maybe his guests are famous. He gets some famous people on his guests, but Joseph Jaffe himself is not famous. That's the important part. You can have famous guests and still not be famous. And if you want an example of that, well, Joseph Jaffe be a really good example. Teller would do a better job at a talk show. And Teller doesn't talk. Which you'd think would be one of the major qualifications, being on a talk show and not being famous. What's that? Teller. Oh, yeah. Teller says, joseph Jaffe not famous. Love you.

Speaker D: This is my best kind of show. Notice that we didn't touch one of them. One of them. Not even one of them. I'm not sure which one is Paul Rudd and which one is Lang Green.

Speaker B: Final card.

Speaker D: Here is the.

Speaker B: The ultimate outcome.

Speaker D: Today is take your dog to work day. Like Scooby Doo, without further ado, his debut.

Speaker B: Caroline.

Speaker D: Everybody say hello to Sammy. Is it not good?

Speaker B: I'm just pausing so that you just are at the front of your seat. I'm so enormously flattered. Branding is not a bad blinding. I'm gonna have to. I'm gonna have to take a picture of this. No, this is agape.

Speaker D: This is love.

Speaker B: I really enjoyed this. You did do your homework. You asked great questions.

Speaker D: I'm flattered. Thank you.

Speaker B: You just made my day.

Speaker E: Look at you.

Speaker D: You are insane. How did.

Speaker B: You're insane.

Speaker D: Well, I am, uh. I might be insane, but I'm. I'm giddy with excitement. Uh, first of all, I think it's the first sir that I've ever, uh, met in my life. Maybe, um, the only. The only, uh, other kind of sir, uh, association is. What do you call a man with a gun, sir? I mean, I know that part. Um, I have not seen his gun, nor do I want to. Um, but I'm so excited. This is. This is such an important topic on so many levels. Talking about uncertainty. Uh, is there a certainty of uncertainty or an uncertainty about certainty? Is there such a thing as a sure thing? Um. There is so many paths to go down. This concept of living in a vuca world. Volatile, uncertain, complex and. And ambiguous. The uncertainty of today's political, uh, and geopolitical times. If we even want to go there, how about the uncertainty of being an entrepreneur and dealing with risk and going down that rabbit hole. We shall, we shall, we shall go down many rabbit holes today. Um, and, uh, I'm going to get on with the show because I want him on as soon as possible as a teacher, facilitator and coach. My why is that? I help high aspiring entrepreneurs, owners and their leadership teams get unstuck, return to growth, and become forever changed. I started the show when people were stuck at home or stuck in general. So when you're stuck, the best thing to do is to get unstuck. And so if you like the show and 800 interviews just like this one, none better than David, let me tell you, there's no question. And I always say that to all the girls, um, then, uh, please subscribe to the show. In terms of growth. I work with small and medium businesses to help them grow, but not just grow in terms of market share and profit. Sometimes it's about growing up. So growth is, it's literal, figurative, it's physical, it's spiritual. It's all of the above. And finally, my sixth and final book forever changed how a global pandemic changed my direction, my purpose, and my life. To what end? Why are we doing this? Is to make that lasting impact. And that impact has got to start with us in terms of transformation. Um, but now it's time for the seated soliloquy. And, uh, the seated soliloquy today, uh, is called, uh, so you're saying there's a chance now, you know, dumb and dumber, perhaps one of the greatest movies ever made is it's not even up for debate. Jim Carrey, uh, he has this wonderful scene where he turns around to the girl that he's chasing and he says, what are the odds and of a girl like me going out with a boy like you? And uh, and she kind of shakes her head and he says, you know, like, maybe like, like one in 100 or one in a thousand. And she's like more like one in a million. And he turns around and he goes, yes. So you're saying there's a chance. Now it makes me think about this idea of odds. Uh, right. One in a thousand, one in ten thousand. Sometimes you can be so, I guess, optimistic that you see the one in the 10,000. And other times perhaps, maybe, uh, debilitates you with fear. I think recently the odds of an asteroid hitting Earth, uh, had doubled from 1 1/2% to 3%. I don't like those odds. I don't like three out of a hundred. That makes me a Little bit more fearful or a little bit more serious. When you go for genetic testing now and, uh, you're about to have a baby and you find out that there's a 1 in 10 or 50,000 chance that your child might have a genetic disease, does that, uh, does that embolden you? Does that make you feel confident? Um, you know, knowing that the odds are so small or just knowing that you could be the 1 in 10,000 is enough to, uh, fill you with fear odds, uh, and the odds of coping in this uncertain world, um, this idea of being comfortable with being uncomfortable, that's something we use a lot in coaching. But what about the uncertainty of uncertainty? Or the certainty of uncertainty actually recognizing the randomness, the luck associated with life? Um, does that in fact give you the strength that you need to persevere, to keep going? Or is it enough to force you onto the sidelines as a spectator and, uh, never sticking your neck out? Remember, my final word today is, uh, you miss 100% of the shots that you don't take. So maybe it's time to start getting comfortable with being uncertain. And now it's time to, uh, certainly welcome him on. Um, I see, uh, Bob Farnham is here watching on YouTube and he said, I'm not sure I want to do anything else other than watching this episode. And he says, final book. Yeah, sure, sixth and final book. I probably said that about five, four, three, two and one. Um, but why would I need to write any books when I can have authors, uh, like David Spiegelhalter? So let me give you a little bit of background, uh, on his incredible, uh, resume. Professor Sir David Spiegelhalter, F R S O B E is Emeritus professor of Statistics at the University of Cambridge and a non Executive Director of the UK Statistics Authority. He's a regular media commentator on statistical issues and was very busy over the COVID crisis. His best selling book, the Art of Statistics was published in 2019 and the Art of Uncertainty in 2024. He was president of the Royal Statistical Society in 2017 and 2018. His career highlights include appearing on Desert Island Discs in 2022 and in 2011, coming seventh in an episode of BBC One's Winter Wipeout. He is a man of many talents. Welcome to the show. Uh, Sir Dave.

Speaker B: Uh, thank you so much. Great, uh, pleasure to be here.

Speaker D: All right, so the first question of course is, would you like to be called sir at every twist and turn? Because.

Speaker B: No, no, I kind of, I mean it's, I'm not embarrassed, but I quite like it, you know, but you can. Now you've said it once, that's it. Uh, no need. I can be David from now on. Uh, business. It sounds good, but it actually is. It's pretty useless. I haven't found a single way to monetize it or do anything with it. I thought I'd get upgrades when I flew. No, nothing. Nobody cares less. Anyway, never mind.

Speaker D: Look, all I. All I remember is the scene from, uh. From, uh, the Meaning of, uh. No, not the meaning of life. The, um, uh, what was it? Mel Brooks, the history of the world. You know, you look like the piss boy. Anyway, so I'd rather be called anything but that. Um, and in sales, of course, they say I don't care what you call me as long as you call me, um. So I will call you David. And, uh, I'm so thrilled to have you on the show.

Speaker B: Um.

Speaker D: Really. Um, I like the fun element straight away. You know, you keep us guessing and isn't that part of the essence of certainty and uncertainty? You know, when people are too predictable, I suppose, um, you know, they. They lose a little bit of their edge. Um, so just off the bat, we'll get into fun facts in a moment. But, but what are your thoughts on that? That idea of being too predictable when people, you know, uh, the power of being unexpected? I suppose.

Speaker B: Yes, yes.

Speaker F: I'm not.

Speaker B: I. I don't think I naturally do that. I'm. I'm a nerd. I. I don't feel I'm actually that interesting. Uh, but I have got. It relates to what you said before about it since being bold, uh, about taking some risks and is what I. I do a lot of schools talks and I talk to kids. I say go and take risks.

Speaker F: Yeah.

Speaker B: Go out there, but don't be reckless, you know? Yeah. Cover your downside. Make sure you protected yourself against really bad things that can happen. But otherwise, as you said, you know, if you don't buy a lot, you're not going to win the lottery. Lottery. If you don't buy a lottery ticket, you know, you've got to. You got to try some stuff. And, you know, there's research done on people who. Both they themselves and what. Who other people considered as lucky people. And it was found that, you know, they got very, you know, almost predictable characteristics of those that, uh, took risk, that searched out opportunities, that had a positive attitude, that went for. Went for stuff. They were careful, you know, they didn't want to be stupid, but they went for things. And sometimes they don't work out and sometimes they do. So I, for some reason, I don't know, I've got that as my sort of personality. I don't mind being second or third rate at, ah, quite a lot of stuff. You know, I play in. I sing in a choir. I played in the samba band. I row all pretty badly. Oh, I used to ski. I used to do all this badly as well, so. But I actually just enjoy them. I don't have to be good at things. I just willing to have a go.

Speaker D: There's a lot to unpack in that, first of all. And we'll come back to it as well, because I want to get into some of these, uh, these second, uh, rate, as you say, uh, activities. Um, but certainly the concept of risk versus reckless love that. And we could probably spend an entire hour talking about that. I also love the idea of trying many things, you know, not. Which of course comes into this idea of being prepared to fail. Right. Learning to fail, failing to learn. And then the third part that I really, uh. And we definitely will delve into it is what is it to be a lucky person? Uh, what. What truly is luck? Um, and, uh, of course, you know, Gary Player, my. My countryman from the land, uh, of my birth. Um. Uh, I know he said it, but I don't think he was the original person. But. But the essence of it is the more I practice, the luckier I get. Um, it's in my best. Yeah, but you got to start. Did you mention Gary Player or someone?

Speaker A: Yeah, yeah.

Speaker D: Aristotle or.

Speaker B: Yeah, yeah, I did say it probably wasn't him who said. Who said it. Yeah, yeah.

Speaker D: And it was, you know, Aristotle, I believe, was a great golfer, but, you know, I cannot confirm that. Um, so we sent out our spies, our sir spies, uh, into. Into the field to find out some fun facts about you. Uh, whether these are eulogy, virtues or circus virtues. Um, but the first thing, uh, we found, uh, of course, and uh, you know, ah, you were too fascinating that we. We didn't even play to truce and a lie. We're just going full out with the fact that these are fun facts. Of course. You came seventh in an episode of Winter Wipeout in 2011. Um, I mean, the. The obvious question. The two questions are why did you do it? And two, how hard does it actually, like, do those. Those. Those. I don't know, those balls hit you when you, like. I mean, when people do triple somersaults and, uh, crash into the water.

Speaker B: Yeah, yeah, yeah. No, it's on, it's on, it's on. YouTube if you want to watch my performance there. Yeah. My daughter said, come on, you got to apply to go on this. And I went in as Professor Risk. And, uh, and I went down for the audition. You know, thousands of people audition for this. And I went down. Everyone dresses up in silly costumes. I went down in full academic dress with my gown, my mortar board, and my OB hanging there, uh, all dressed in black suit and turned up and said, I demand to be on this program. I am Professor Risk. I have a professional obligation to tackle the big red balls. And I got on. I did some silly stuff, and my daughter got on as well. We both got on. And then, uh, they fly you to Argentina for a couple of it. For a weekend, the 20 of you. The winner comes back with £10,000. I didn't come back with that. Other people come back with broken bones, whatever. Um, but in fact, you know, I trained for. I took it seriously. Um, you know, I, um, looked at the past data and realized that in order to get through the qualifier, you had to really get below three minutes. And so I practiced bursts of energy for three minutes. I really trained for it. And, uh, and I did okay. You know, I got through to the second round and. And stayed on. You know, the thing. And in the end, as you say, you get whammed by something, you fly through the air in somersaults and then land in the water. But they're very good, the protective stuff that you wear, which is also a life jacket. And they must have. I always wanted to know what experiments they did to test how hard they could hit people, how many times they could get them to swirl around in the air, um, and not actually injure them.

Speaker D: So I take. I take two little interesting, uh, things away from that. And, you know, by the way, part of the reason I did this was not only the eulogy versus the resume virtues, but it's fascinating, A, to find out about people, and B, it ends up just being really interesting. So the. The first thing is I like the fact that even in something that one might describe as a lock or. Or, you know, trying something, you still put in the hours and put in the time. And I think there's a real lesson that says no matter what you do in life, even if it is just frivolous and superficial, still actually make an effort to like. To, like, get the most out of it. The other thing is, one can only imagine that they. They. They did have to, uh, be very certain about the uncertainty or the certainty, I should say, of the fact that if Anyone did break their neck or something worse, uh, it would not end well for them and would cost them a lot of money. So I can only imagine they did their homework.

Speaker B: Yeah, exactly. Their health and safety people said, oh, it's filmed in Argentina to get away from health and safety regulations. But I don't think that's the case. I think they were actually quite careful. But you're right, you know, other things I do which I'm not very good at, like singing or rowing or stuff like that, I take it seriously. I want to do what I don't want to do. Be second rate just because I haven't bothered. I want to be second rate because

Speaker D: you want to earn your second rate status.

Speaker B: Yeah, yeah, I want to. Yeah, yeah, exactly. I want to be proud of my second rate.

Speaker D: Yeah. All right. So we also found out that, uh, that you have a tattoo and a piercing. And I will tell you, I will show you. Well, I was going to say never. Never. Uh, have you been interviewed where you've seen this image?

Speaker A: Y.

Speaker B: No, no, My daughter, my. My daughter's given me a tattoo for my 71st birthday. So I'm just about to get another one. But it's not going to be like that.

Speaker D: No. This was, uh, this was what would happen if Mike Tyson, uh, and. And Sir David Spiegelhalter, uh, had a love child. Uh, so we'll. We'll kind of leave it there now. Now, the funny thing is this actually is true, that they're all true. You're the reigning world champion at Loop, a game of billiards played on an elliptical table with only one pocket.

Speaker B: So that's really good research to find that image.

Speaker D: Are you. Are you also the only player of Loop? You know, is there only one player in the world?

Speaker B: It was the only, you know, championship game. It was played at some festival, only 16 of us competing. And I happened to win, but again, I took it quite seriously because it's played on an elliptical table. And you can use the mathematics of that in that there's a little dot, there's, you know, there's two, you know, focuses on a foci or whatever on a, um, on elliptical table. And the mathematics is that if you can hit one over one focus, the ball will bounce off and go on to the. Go over the other focus. That's the math. So you can pop the ball indirect. As long as you can go over the other focus, you should go into the pocket. The other thing you do is get out of a snooker where you feel you're Stuck by hitting the ball all the way around, which you can't do on a rectangular table people. It'll go all the way around and come back the other side. So there's a few mathematical tricks and a slightly misspent youth playing snooker.

Speaker D: Well, I mean remind me never to uh, play any form of uh, of odds based game or uh, or a science based game with a mathematician. The, the funny thing is this, I actually came up with a lie for you initially and the, and the lie was that you once got a perfect coin. Dots, uh, and that's what prompted you to, to think of, you know, to mention loop. But uh, you know, anyway, uh, from the uh, ridiculous back to the sublime, um, you know I'm, I'm really excited to talk about this idea, you know, of uncertainty. Um, so I'm kind of thinking there, there, there are, ah, I was reading some of the excerpts etc and, and by the way the, one of the things that just jumped out at me was this idea that. Am I understanding this correctly? Never if, if a deck of cards is shuffled correctly, um, or, or never in, in the, in the history of the world has a duck has a deck ever been shuffled. The same is, is that, is that right? How is that possible?

Speaker B: Not logically but you know, if I take this shuffle cards, I'm shuffle, I've shuffled them lots of times and I shuffle them up and I can be really confident, more confident than I am of absolutely anything that no one is in the entire history of humanity has ever had a pack of cards in this order. And I can shuffle them again and do that. And nobody in the entire history of humanity has ever had a pack of cards in this order.

Speaker D: How do we know that to be true?

Speaker B: No, we can't know it logically. It's a purely statistical argument. The fact is that there are an unbelievably vast number of shuffles. Um, you know, you could say write it with you know, 78 zeros afterwards and it. Because, and it's just simple that the first card can be any one of 52 and the second one can be any one of 51 and the third any one of 50 and you multiply all those together to get all the different combinations 52 times. 50 times. So do that on your calculator and your calculator will explode because you get a very big number 52 factorial 52 with a little exclamation mark afterwards and that goes to number about 10 to the 78 or something like that. This is more than the number of atoms in our galaxy.

Speaker D: Okay. When you put it that way, yeah.

Speaker B: And so, you know, you can, uh. In the book I talk about, well, if everyone who had ever lived on Earth had done nothing all their life except shuffled cards, the chance that any two of them at any time would have produced the same shuffle is, is, you know, less than 10 to the minus 19. So that, you know, it's absolutely microscopic chance. People find this really surprising.

Speaker D: It does. And, and, and, and then I think, and I think that why I get so excited, I say, given giddy about this, is that when you look at these, these mathematical odds, these minuscule, uh, odds of good, of bad, of ugly, some people get incredibly excited, uh, about it and others get completely morbid and depressed about it. You take the lottery. You mentioned the lottery earlier. Somehow, you know, with, with just one of the most brilliant taglines here in the us you never know. That's good enough for me to sink in my life savings. I can't afford eggs anymore, but I can afford to buy lottery tickets on that, on that ridiculous odds that I'm going to take away a billion dollars. Um, I mean, it's psychology, you know, it's. What is it? Manipulation. Why are we so excited about odds that we have no chance in winning?

Speaker B: Yeah, exactly. In uk it could be you and a big finger pointing down as a sort of advert they use.

Speaker D: I've got another.

Speaker B: Yeah, I don't think. I hope that no one is stupid and reckless enough to actually gamble a large amount of money on the lottery. I mean, that'd be completely idiotic.

Speaker D: It's just how much they buy eggs for, which is a large amount.

Speaker B: Well, there's a lot of, a lot of money now, of course, but, um, you know, buying an odd lottery, I've never, I haven't bought lottery, but I only buy them when the odds are actually in my favor in some sense. That there's. The jackpot has rolled over so many times that actually they're giving out more in prizes than they're taking in your money. So. But, uh, you know, it's still, I'm not going to win. Um, if I kept on, you might, you know, occasionally win something. So. But people like that opportunity because if you don't buy a ticket, there's absolutely no chance of winning. And people saying, Unfortunately, I think the people who buy lottery tickets are those who would love a large amount of money to change their life, which would change their life. And I don't feel like that. I don't. I'm fine. I'M okay, so I don't, I, I, I have no need to gamble and I, I actually don't like gambling. I used to gamble a lot when I was a kid and I, uh, found I didn't like losing. So since then I've always been fascinated by gambling and I like, I'm fascinated by sports betting and things like that, but I don't gamble.

Speaker D: You know, it's funny, as you were telling, um, and talking about, came back to the idea of, of risk, um, and calculated risk because, you know, as opposed to being reckless. So let's take reckless out for a second. But the idea of calculated risks and, and in this particular case, this idea of trying, um, it, it strikes me that the psychology involved is less about, it's less about winning and it's more just about trying, about just being in it, uh, to win it. And I think maybe that's the connection to us, which is, I know I'm not going to, but if I don't try, I'll never know. And that seems so soft and ephemeral. Um, but yet that to me is much more tangible and powerful than, than, than what I'm going to do with the money.

Speaker B: Yeah, I mean, I get a bit fed up with all these sort of, I feel good films where the underdog comes up and wins and it's always about winning. What's so good about winning? You know, what's so great about that, really good though is, you know, when making an effort has brought you closer to people, you revealed aspects of yourself you didn't know about. You developed relationships, you've had fun. Had fun. And, and that is so important. And having fun is so underrated and it's not to do with winning at all. And so I, I'm not keen on this whole winning business is, I think, grossly overrated. And it's, and it's very unfortunate that people get so obsessed by, oh, I didn't win, so I'm a failure. What a complete nonsense.

Speaker D: Well, they're going to take away one thing from this conversation, which is you work hard to be second rate.

Speaker B: Yeah.

Speaker D: Many things, you know, and then, and then protect your unique ability.

Speaker B: Yeah, yeah.

Speaker D: Let's talk, let's go back to this, this idea of uncertainty as it relates to randomness and control, this illusion of control, because at the core, you know, that is the essence. Are we in control? Were we ever in control? How do we get comfortable with being uncomfortable? So I'd love for you to, to talk about this idea of uncertainty as it relates to this. And it is an illusion of control.

Speaker B: I know. And I've, uh. Writing this book actually changed me. It changed my life and when I was exploring these issues and I, I use quite a lot of personal stories. I use the story of my grandfather in the first World War who had. Who you know, had a terrible job, as in a brigade gas officer in the EPRA salient in 1918. And he lasted three weeks in the job, which I think was pretty good going. And he got blown up, but he didn't get severely injured and he was just taken out of the front line. And that's the only reason I'm here. First of all, that he got, you know, uh, that he didn't get killed, but also that by being out of the front line he avoided, uh, these terrible 1918 battles. And he was a second lieutenant. He'd have been first out of the trench in the counter attacks, blowing his little whistle and I wouldn't be here. So these, what I call micro contingencies, all these small things. My father nearly died in the Second World War and you know, it's actually amazing that I was conceived a toy. I mean, have you thought about your conception? I mean it is quite challenging to do that, particularly if your parents are still alive. But once. If they're. No, mine are not alive.

Speaker D: I think about. I think about my conception at least 22 times every day. But that's another story for another day.

Speaker B: Exactly.

Speaker D: And David, uh, you know, I'm sorry to have interrupted you because I love this so much, but. But I know where you're heading on this. The. It's. It's almost like a butterfly effect. You know, the amount of random insane things that had to happen for us to.

Speaker B: I call them micro contingencies or. There is a staggering list of things that would have been needed to just be here at all. And as known in the trade as existential luck. You know, the luck of even being here. But which you might think of course is the most important one, but you wouldn't be able to say it if it hadn't happened. But the. Then I think the really important, given that we are here, the most important bit of luck is what philosophers call constitute of luck. Uh, which is who you were born as, the who your parents were, the time in history, your social class, the, the. Your early upbringing, your. The whole structure in which you were brought up and, and your genes, maybe any inherited characteristics over all these things over which you have absolutely no control whatsoever and yet are hugely influential for the rest of your life. And you know, just realizing it made me realize, my God, I had staggering constitutive luck. My family didn't have much money, but it was at a time with a very strong welfare state in the uk. Free schooling, free education, you know, free, um, free university, free, um, health care, free everything. We used to get free milk at school. We used to get, it was, it was just extraordinary. And I had a really good education, went to Oxford and things like that, from a family with really, you know, very, very little money. So, um, that was. And I think I'd love to be able to say, oh, and I'm Professor Sir David Spiegelter and all this has been due to my personal efforts and things.

Speaker C: Wow.

Speaker B: A bit. But a huge amount of it is just due to this constitutive luck of who I was born as. And the next bit of luck is circumstantial luck. Being at the right place in the right time or the wrong place at the wrong time. Being in the place where the shell is going to come down and getting blown up is pretty bad circumstantial luck. But I had again, fantastic circumstantial luck. I happened to go to Oxford, do maths and my tutor in Oxford was Professor now Professor Sir Adrian Smith, President of the Royal Society. Amazing young man who was obsessed with probability and uncertainty and understanding it. And he, you know, we used to argue about this in the pub and I've never, it's never left me. And this book is a final chance to write about some of the things that I've been, you know, been rumbling on for 50 years. You know, does probability even exist? Well, I don't think it does. So, um, you know, and, and then the final type of luck is philosophers call is resultant luck or outcome like, which is just how it happened to work out for you at that time. The fact that you didn't get killed by the shell or the fact that you, um, you know, all these just whether you, whether the goal was scored or not, you know, just these micro, small micro things that, that turn things from good occasions into bad occasions. So I think it's really useful to think in those terms. But all of them are to do with things that you got no or very little control over. They have a big impact and they're unpredictable. And so I think the luck, if you call it, can think of that, you can think of it as chance operating, being taken rather personally. It has a massive influence on our luck. And the degree of control in our lives, I think is grossly overrated as you mentioned, as many people have said. Actually also in researching this book and I've decided that uh, we uh, don't have free will anyway. So I'm an anti free will person as well. But maybe we better not get into that. It's not really my area.

Speaker D: It's a bit philosophical, but it's a, it's good. Uh, it's on the edges. And you know, and, and I couldn't help but think of a. From a theological standpoint, this idea of m. Who I am and my gifts and my talents are God given or have been, you know, passed down and I'm just this vessel, this puppet, uh, of, of. Of somewhat free will and not. But then the other thing when you know that's more of the existential. But when you start to talk about uh, you know, going from constitutive to circumstantial to, to resultant, that makes me think of mindset and, and all the coaches that say, these are not the things that happen to you, these are the things that happen for you. What are you going to do about it now? So, so that jumps in as well. The, the other thing that just that popped into my head is, uh, I always, uh. My son used to play for a football team, as Americans would call it soccer team here in Connecticut. And their motto was control the controllables. And that's. And that is. But then help me complete the sentence. If it's control the controllables, what do you do about the uncanny?

Speaker B: Uh, you open yourself up to opportunity that presents itself. In other words, you welcome the uncontrollable.

Speaker D: So welcome that. I like that idea. Control the controllables, welcome the uncontrollables.

Speaker B: But then you have to try to make the best of it by not being reckless and seeking out opportunities. Again, as you mentioned, as I mentioned right at the beginning, the research that's been done on lucky people have identified these factors. They're ones who identify opportunities, take advantage of them, are, uh, not worried about failing. They'll try things and they end, uh, up. Things work out all right for them. I mean a lot of it is a positive attitude. And how much of that is something one can. How much of that is inborn? How much of that is cultivated? I'm, I'm not sure about. But uh, I think that, you know, being a. Having a fairly positive. But the trouble is a positive attitude, they can then lead to these negative consequences like for. I've got, I've got over optimism. And so I tend to think everything's going to be okay. And so therefore, sometimes don't prepare for things that can go wrong.

Speaker D: Well, let's, let's actually talk about that. I still want to come back to what it is to, to be a lucky person. But we live in a world of, of, of data and big data. And now AI powering all of this data. It strikes me that it can lead to certainly, uh, And I think you're alluding to this overconfidence and hubris when, when we, uh. David Ogilvy, the, uh, you know, legendary admin, he would. And this has been used so many times, but let's just use data for a second. We should use data not as a drunk use, as a lampost, but rather as a guiding light. Um, so it informs our decisions, but it doesn't, you know, it doesn't, it doesn't over overwhelm or, or mas those decisions. Um, so let's start there, which is, which is when and how does actual data make us dumber and, and, and, and more arrogant and lead us to overconfidence?

Speaker B: Yeah, well, um, in my book, the term rationality almost never appears because I don't believe in it. I think it's pretty, pretty nonsensical. The term humility is in there the whole time, all the way through. Because I'm a statistician, I spent my life building statistical models, analyzing data, making predictions, making inferences about what's going on and so on. You know, in, in uh, inferring the number of people who were killed by something, by infected blood or something like that. And um, and I, it's made me really realize that, you know, the extreme limitations of, of what I'm doing in the sense that, you know, you, you're so dependent on assumptions all the time, uh, in terms of how the data was collected, what it means about the, um, the, the. Any statistical modeling, any mathematical assumptions. They're all wrong. They're all wrong. You can absolutely guarantee that. Now, whether they're importantly wrong isn't a matter for skill and judgment. And that's why I called my book the Art of Statistics and the Art of Uncertainty, because it's not an algorithmic process to work out what the data is saying for us. Nate Silver says that, you know, the data does not speak for itself. We imbue it with meaning. That's the start quote in the start, the signal in the noise. It's incredibly important to have that view. And so AI comes along, um, which will analyze the data for you and do stuff and do searches, do summaries do all sorts. I use it all the time and it's a fantastic aid. It's just you've got to treat it, I think like having a really, in a way, well, a well informed assistant, but a bit young and a bit fallible, who knows a huge amount but actually is not very wise necessarily. And so you just have to treat it in that way. And I think that's incredibly valuable and I think people are going to learn how to do this. There's a lovely quote about. Because um, Geoffrey Hinton said at one point, you know, father of AI is called, oh, you know, we won't need any radiologists in a few years. And uh, and that's wrong. But. And people say, well, it's not that AI will replace radiologists, but it probably replaced radiologists who don't use AI. And I now say that to my colleagues, my statistical colleagues. It's not going to replace statisticians, but it might replace statisticians who don't use AI.

Speaker D: Yeah, I've heard that quote a lot and I've never heard, you know, I've never quite heard the angle that the data itself, the cold, hard, you know, unambiguous, objective, independent data.

Speaker B: No, data's not like that. Data's not cold and hard. And facts. No, no, no. I always think of numbers. Numbers are fluffy things. They really are interesting. They're much more fluffy. And that's from years, decades of working with data because somebody has got to have collected it. It's probably got some mistakes in it in some way. It never quite represents what you want to collect, never does. It's always just maybe a proxy for something. Any analysis is hugely dependent on assumptions about how it's collected and what it means, are they independent, etc, etc, what sort of patterns do they follow and so on. There's a huge amount of judgment involved in every step of the whole process of learning from data. And that's how statistics is taught as part of this data cycle in which judgment is used in every part of that, of that process. And that's great, that's why it's an art of statistics. And I, you know, I think, well, this is what makes it a wonderful profession. I, you know, had a love, wonderful career, uh, you know, floundering around with this stuff and where there's always when the last thing, obviously one uses a huge amount of computer, um, analysis, some heavy computing, some of the stuff I've done, but it doesn't tell you the answer. And so I actually, in the book I talk quite A lot about what as analysts who you've been set a question to answer you trying to do as a data scientist or analysts in government, whatever. And you realize and you can do your best, but it's never, you know, sometimes it can do it really well if you're really confident about what you've done. Other times, you know, you've made a stab at it. But actually it's not that great. The data isn't that great. The assumptions, you're not quite sure about them. And I think it's enormously liberating for analysts to be able to express their confidence in the whole analysis. And a lot of people are doing this now. They do it in intelligence, they do it in health, they do it in, um, climate change, they do it in policy now will give a confidence. There's almost a star rating, a confidence rating on the whole underlying analysis and assumptions and evidence, the quality of the evidence, the quality of the modeling. And this is enormously liberating and something I think is hugely valuable because, you know, I can do an analysis, I can put it into a computer outcomes, an estimate and an interval. Well, that interval is wrong. It is not an expression of the uncertainty because it assumes a model is true and all models are wrong. And so every interval that comes out of your computer output is wrong. They're always too narrow. And so you have to, I think qualify m any, any analysis you do with, with your judgment.

Speaker D: I feel there are two, um, there are two topics that are connected by a, ah, very clear bridge. The first comes back to the fact that you called this the art of uncertainty as opposed to the science of uncertainty. And the phrase that we heard a lot during the past five years, four plus years, uh, follow the science and the thing. And then when I think of climate change and Covid, etc. Clearly we haven't done a very good job of using the data, um, and using the science. And maybe we just haven't. I don't know if we haven't actually understood the concept of uncertainty better, but ultimately we weren't really able to change perceptions, behaviors, attitudes. And there's a little. And as well when we think about now, the misinformation or you know, I mean, David, the most obvious one is a gloss that is half full or empty. Same data point, completely different perspective. Um, how the hell do we ever make, do we get to consensus?

Speaker B: Yeah, I mean this is, this is the big issues. I mean first of all, you've got the whole psychology of positive and negative framing, which is the glass Half full of the glass, half empty. In the US they have, you know, 2% mortality rates in your, in your heart surgery. In the UK we've got 98% survival rates. I mean, that is much better.

Speaker D: I had heart surgery as well. I did not want 2%.

Speaker B: Right, good. Well, I'm glad it worked out. So, um, so you got all the framing issues, but then you've got the way in which people use evidence and as you said, ignoring the uncertainties and the way particularly that policymakers and policies, politicians, are extremely poor at, uh, using evidence and communicating the uncertainties. And then using this phrase, following the science is totally nonsensical because the science doesn't tell you what to do. It's very limited, the science, it can tell you about particular relationships, it can make draws, even make some predictions, but it doesn't tell you what to do, what to do, what policies or political decisions in which much broader aspects have to be weighed up, traded off necessarily, um, in order to make decisions. And I believe, you know, I got furious during COVID when politicians would say, we're following the science because they were hiding, they were attempting to hide their, actually their own power behind. The scientists trying to say, oh, it's. The science says. And no, the science doesn't tell you what to do at all. So, um, you know, and scientists can, can certainly tell you what we might happen with huge uncertainties under different policies. It's not the scientist's job to say what you should do because there's always things that, there's always extra issues to come in. You know, the science in the, um, in the UK didn't include on Covid, didn't include the costs, it didn't include impact on schools, kids, education, it didn't include all sorts of stuff. And they, they never pretended it did. So, um, so that's really irritating that people think the science tells you what to do. But there's also tied up with the fact that the science will, it will always produce uncertainty. People won't know what's going on. They won't even know what's really what's going on in the past. They certainly won't know what's going on in the future. They'll give some, can give some judgments. They might be able to quantify it to some extent and that's what you're left with. The actual people who are accountable, who take responsibility, must deal with that. And I write about that quite a lot in the book about, say, for example, when Obama had to decide whether to send the seals in, into the compound in Abbottabad in 2011 when um, it was thought that Osama bin Laden was there and there was huge uncertainty and he had multiple teams coming up with and some teams said oh there's only a 30 to 40% chance he's there. Other more optimistic ones, there's an 80 to 90% chance he was there. And he had to make that judgment as the responsible, accountable individual. You know, after a lot of discussions he went for it but in the end he said I thought it was about 50, 50. So um, you know that seems to me, you know, responsible use of, of analytics and judgment and judgment and um, science if necessary. So I, I, it doesn't tell you what to do. We've got to be able to communicate uncertainty and policy makers and um, you know, must be able to accept that. And I still hear stories of politicians who say oh I don't, just give me one number, I don't get, start giving me these ranges and things like that. Lyndon Johnson is posting to have said oh, rangers are for cattle, give me one number. And uh, you know, this is nonsense. This is just trying to not take responsibility and you shouldn't, shouldn't expect it completely different when it comes to dealing with the public and skeptics and misinformation. That's a whole other issue which actually I'm interested in because I'm interested in trust in, trust in um, authorities, trust in science. And uh, I, I go, I, you know, I can go on about this for hours because I'm hugely influenced by a philosopher, Kantian philosopher, not as I know any count at all, but she would say that, that organizations and scientists for example, say oh, we want people to trust us. Just I've got it all wrong, we've got it completely the wrong way around. What they should be asking themselves is how can we demonstrate trustworthiness? In other words, how can we earn the trust that then might be offered up to, to us? So there's no good trying to be trusted if you're giving out one sided biased messages, trying to manipulate people's emotions to get them to do what you wanted, what you want them to do. Why should anyone trust you when you're giving a one sided manipulative message. So uh, you know, that's, and so much of what comes out from authorities is grossly manipulative and it's untrustworthy. So I'm on, you know, not just me. I mean there's a whole, a lot of interest in is it possible for actually people to be Trustworthy to actually say, well for example, vaccines, okay, I'm a, you know, I'm not an anti vaxxer at all. But the phrase vaccines are safe and effective I think is terrible. It's unscientific and untrustworthy because vaccines are not completely safe. They're not completely effective. They're just safe enough and effective enough to use in some circumstances on some people. So when an authority comes out saying vaccines are safe and effective, it's just not trustworthy. No wonder people start rejecting it. And we've done some empirical research on randomized trials with thousands of people shows that if you use a balanced message rather than this one sided message about vaccines, say then overall it has no effect. But if you look at, in terms of the trust, but if you look at people who are skeptical about vaccines, it increases their trust. Trust if they get a balanced message because they can tell when they're getting propaganda. So what it means is that the standard vaccines are safe and effective message is actually decreasing trust in the group they are trying to reach. Let me get worse.

Speaker D: So, uh, yeah, yeah, I can actually talk to this a little bit as well because there is the um, uh, almost the legacy association of, of strength versus weakness. And so immediately I think about the humility associated with just three powerful words. I don't know or I'm not sure.

Speaker B: We're not certain.

Speaker D: The problem is that that can be seen as perceived weakness. And so therefore absolutes become always, never safe, unsafe.

Speaker B: There are two really big misunderstandings or mis in this whole world. First is that in crises people panic, people believe that it's completely untrue. And the other is that saying you're uncertain decreases trust is totally untrue. There's no evident empirical evidence for that whatsoever in uh, as I said, if anything the other way around. And yet that is what you know, that's the, the folk tale that goes around. Oh, we can't admit we, we're uncertain written because nobody will believe what we're saying. Yeah, and, and it's just untrue. But of course you've got to be careful how you acknowledge uncertainty. I wouldn't use the phrase I don't know. I'd say we're not completely certain. There are these. And uh, and you know, in the book I talk about this sort of playbook, that guy I know, John Krebs, who's handled disaster after disaster and he came up with a real good list and he's in crises. And he said first of all, tell people what you do know. So you really say this is what. But then you say what you don't know yet. Then you say what you're doing to find out more, the experiments you're doing, the research and things. Then you tell people what they can do in the meantime, and maybe that's precautionary. And then the final message is, and this is the one that politicians find totally impossible, is to say things will change, our advice will change. What I'm saying is provisional. When we learn more, we'll be able to give different advice. So don't, you know, we will change. We will what we say. And politicians can't do that. Just, they have to, you know, have absolute. Oh, ah. What we're doing is absolutely right. So for Covid, for example, people were still, you know, wiping surfaces and cleaning off their shopping a year afterwards when people knew very quickly it was all complete waste of time because it wasn't spread by droplets. And so this, they, they could never change. They were stuck with these policies that were, that were enough, that were actually inappropriate. And so, um, again, it's having that humility. And all the research shows that if you do take people into your confidence, you treat them with respect as intelligent adults, because people are basically pretty sensible if, as long as you know, you're trustworthy. So, and you've got to be a good communicator. It helps if you're already someone who has got an element of trust in them, uh, but that you can do that.

Speaker E: This.

Speaker B: So I, it really, it's just not true to say, oh, we can't acknowledge, we can't admit we're uncertain because people won't believe us or trust us anymore.

Speaker D: I, I want to spend the, uh, the last bit of time and, and by the way, uh, Sir Lord Professor David, in fact, you know what I've just decided from, from now on, I'm just going to call you Professor Rise Risk. I like that. Yeah, you're a Professor Risk.

Speaker B: Yeah, that's what I was known as.

Speaker D: Yeah, come back anytime. Uh, the door is open. But I want to talk about entrepreneurship. Um, I want to talk about those crazy, uh, people, uh, you know, going out on a limb, uh, and uh, and going into the ultimate uncertain, you know, Arena Coliseum, knowing that, I don't know, 95% plus of small businesses and startups fail, um, and so much of their success is going to be, um, attributed to luck or dumb luck or beginners luck and the ability to manage risk. What are your thoughts and messages to entrepreneurs as it relates to this? The subject of uncertainty.

Speaker B: I am the last person you should ask about this because I haven't got an ounce of entrepreneurial, um, urge, uh, in me whatsoever. I've always sat in a safe job. We developed some fantastic software that became, went around the world, revolutionized Bayesian statistics, and we just gave it away. So, uh, I'm hopeless. So. And I got no, I've got no interest in leadership either. So don't ask me about that because I've always managed to avoid any leadership position as well.

Speaker D: So I, I'm not letting you get away with this, by the way, because,

Speaker B: uh, no, but I managed to do quite well. So I'd managed to do quite well, I think, because I have been from an academic position quite entrepreneurial, and I've kind of gone out into. I've gone into new areas that other people. I couldn't be bothered just to do the same old stuff that everyone was doing. So I've gone into new areas that I found interesting and I guess did carry some risk, um, because I didn't know how they're going to work out, but I just found them really riveting and exciting. So in a way I was taking some risks there, I think, with my career, tended to follow new lines, um, and it's worked out for me. And so I guess I must have had some reasonable judgment about what was a good idea and what wasn't. And I think that's probably. I have got a bit of that.

Speaker D: Well, I'll give you a little prompt here, which is this idea of, uh, you hearing a lot of founders and entrepreneurs saying, if I had known then what I know now, I probably wouldn't have gotten involved. And so I want to talk to you about the concept of what, what I would call blissful ignorance. So this is almost a, uh, flying in the face of data and research and all the p. And, and even opinion. It doesn't have to be quantitative, it can be qualitative. This idea of being able to, to move forward without the numbers, you know, and, and embrace that, Vuca. Embrace the uncertainty, you know, accept it, live with it, swim in it. Um, how important is it to be ignorant? Blissfully ignorant?

Speaker B: No, no, no. I think willfully ignorant is what you're describing to some extent. And I think there's no excuse for that whatsoever. To be willfully ignorant, one really should try to find out, you know, everything, as people say, you know, it's like when you're searching, you shouldn't search vertically, you should search horizontally. You know, look at what multiple people are saying about what you're interested in not just don't just follow one view and you to look at, see what multiple perspectives are, see where you sit in that whole spectrum of opinion and so on. And of course you are always ignorant. You don't know what's going to go on on. But to be willfully ignorant to actually anyway not try to find out all the facts that might be relevant and, or every, all the opinions that might be relevant I think is unforgivable. And you know, by luck it might work out all right. But um, you know, if you get to a stage as you said when um, you know, well I should have known back then if I, I would have found it, well then it's your fault. There's no excuse at all. You can't blame luck for that, for not having found that out. So that's why I think you know, say medical decisions, you're faced with a decision, you should research it, you should find out different people's opinions on this. Don't just follow one line. What's interesting is the, I'm fascinated by super forecasters where the people who are asked to produce probabilities for events, you know, so for example it would be now, well you know, will there be a peace treaty in Ukraine in six months time or something like that or three months time so people would produce a problem. And it's sort of the intelligence analysts are doing all the time now but because there are these super forecasting competitions where people enter it and make their judgments and, and the research has shown um, by Phil Tetlock and others shown there are certain characteristics of people who do well at this and they are, they're very agile. They, they seek opinion and understanding from all over the place. They're very broad minded. They try to counter their own biases and their own confirmation biases. They do not just follow one view. So they're constantly in adapting their viewpoint on receipt of new information. They're very agile and flexible. They're not wedded to one world view, what's known as their, their foxes rather than hedgehogs. I don't know if you know that phrase phrase but that's a uh, a uh, standard phrase in this area. Hedgehogs know one big thing. They, they, yeah, they've got one world view they're going to follow and, and foxes don't have a worldview no anything you know, they'll just, you know, just use whatever.

Speaker D: Yeah, I deal, I, I deal with foxes, hedgehogs and squirrels as well. That's More of the adhd, uh, entrepreneurs. Um.

Speaker B: Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Speaker D: It's, it's so, you know, it's so fascinating the. This topic, um, in terms of like really being able to. To create a frame, um, for how to do business in this world, as I said, where being comfortable, uh, being comfortable. Being comfortable at being uncomfortable becomes, Becomes the. The order of the day. I always try and find, um, a quote for my guest. Uh, and uh, this was the one that I found for you, which is there is no such uncertainty as a. As a sure thing. Um, I think this, by this, by the way, um, is from, uh, Robert Burns. Um, there is no such uncertainty as, As a sure thing. I mean, I think ultimately what is the message? The message is do your research, you know, put in the hours, triangulate, triage, however you want to call it, in order to make an informed decision, recognizing that that decision is not going to be perfect and will most likely change.

Speaker B: Yeah. And you're trying to avoid, you're trying to avoid regret. Um, uh, the anticipation of regret is quite strong. And uh, regret, you know, again, psychological research has shown regret is not. Is felt strongly when people, when things turned out badly. It's the real regret is when they feel that they made a decision on the basis of incomplete knowledge that they could have done. They could have actually. They could quite feasibly have made a better decision beforehand, but they didn't know, they didn't explore, they didn't cross their mind. My regret always happened is because something didn't even cross my mind, never even crossed my mind to do. That's the real problem. We didn't even realize that this was an option because I just didn't think about it and talk to people. That's when I regret things. I don't regret stuff that didn't work out very well, you know, because, well, you had a go and it might have and things like that. So I, I feel it very strongly from a personal point of view. Don't ask me to advise businesses because I, you know, avoid them, avoid any sort of business thinking like the plague. But I think that there. These are. I think these are generic issues. That's why it's been so enjoyable talking to you about them because, um, I. Both in my sort of academic work and my, you know, the way I live, I guess, um, I tend to. I think in being old and writing a book like this, you do tend to try to integrate these things together quite well. And um. So as I said, just writing the book, it's changed my Life in terms of now what I believe in.

Speaker D: Well, this is why I love the conversation as well because um, I can add to you know, almost say whether you want to call it a tax taxonomy or a framework of, of regret because there is certainly, you know, the road not taken or you know, or um, the you know for me where I see this a lot is, is the inability to make a decision. So I always love to challenge entrepreneurs when I talk to them. And I go, we all want to make the right decision quickly. But did you know that making the wrong decision, the next best thing is making the wrong decision quickly, which is better than making the right decision slowly, which is better than, which is better than making no decision at all.

Speaker B: Well, I think even worse is not realizing there is a decision to be made.

Speaker D: Beautiful. See we just, you know, that's the

Speaker B: really for me that's, it's not the road last traveling. Uh, is that when you didn't even realize there was another road there. You didn't even look. You were so focused on the road ahead, you didn't realize that there was another branch that you could have taken.

Speaker D: I love that idea.

Speaker B: You didn't look around you. And that for me is the biggest source of regret.

Speaker D: I'm going to give you the uh, the air horn which is you know, just to just uh. I, I was loving it so much I even forgot that there's been plenty of air. Forgive me for not giving you more air horns earlier. Um, I, I guess you know, as, as I said, please, you know, you can even co host this with me if you want. Um, you know, one of the things that we do in life is we attempt to plan. Uh, what did they say? Man plans and God loss. Um, but, but the concept even of the five year plan and, and the one year plan and trying to map out what our life looks like when as I say, I don't even know what the hell I'm going to be doing tomorrow. That, that asteroid, that meteor could hit

Speaker B: us with 3% the probability it's gone right down from 3% now. It's sort of negligible now.

Speaker D: Well, thank, thank goodness. But should people even plan, should people even have a concept of a five year plan or uh, businesses one year plans when there is so much uncertainty.

Speaker B: I think it's really valuable to think of possible futures. So to use your imagination about possibilities to have that spread. Because unless you have got that, that imagination almost not necessarily aims, they're just possibilities, then you've no idea what you know, given a given A branch and a row. Which one? Which one you might take. I think it's absolutely really important to try to look ahead but not necessarily to think, oh, well, this is exactly the way to get there because you have to be very flexible to what arises. But that doesn't mean just looking down at your feet. Feet. I think it's very good to have a, uh. I mean, my imag. I'm not very good at imagination, but I do try. I mean. Okay, example, when you go on holiday, how much do you plan? Everything. Yeah. Do you plan all your way you're going to stay all in advance?

Speaker D: Um, hotel, yes, but, you know, itineraries sometimes. Um, but that also comes down to like, like the. There are other things going on there. What I'm not good at, and I am more of a risk taker and a creative type is, uh, like I'm not that spontaneous and serendipitous though, which is interesting for me.

Speaker B: Exactly. No, I used to be a real planner and very unspontaneous. No, today we're supposed to be doing this where we can stay. And my partner is the total opposite. She doesn't want to plan any. When she goes on holiday to want any plan at all. All going to be spontaneous. And we've reached, I think, quite a good balance because we do a lot of traveling together. So this, this last Christmas we went to Vietnam, about three weeks traveling, and I booked the first two nights and I was allowed to do that. And we had the return flights booked and. And that was it. So we arrived and liked the place. So we stayed a few more nights there and then made it up as we went along, you know, buying train tickets and, you know, traveling and staying in places. And some of them were okay, some were not. And we did everything as we went along. And um. And she's so good at being spontaneous, working. Oh, let's do this. So, um, I, uh, I've been taught that I've had to learn it. It's not natural to me. M. I was a natural, very, very, um, planning person. And I think it's been great. It's been really good.

Speaker D: You know, the. For people that are watching. Uh, and, and believe me, there are a lot of entrepreneurs that are watching. Um, even though you had, even though you had the mathematician and the statistician come in, it was like talking to a, to an artist, a creative type. Um, the crumbs were there. I mean, data, data points are crumbs in a way. You just connect the dots and, and make the connections. Um, you know, David, I um, uh, I wrote a book called Flip the Funnel and I created what I called the marketing bow tie. So you had the acquisition and the retention funnel. But for me I see everything now in terms of bow ties. It's the ability to take, you know, the, the complex, the ambiguous, the, the ton of information to distill it down to a point or a nugget or a crumb or a conversion. And then of course recognizing, guess what, that's only 50. And then it all expands again. And the way that I interpreted this is there's all this information and data and proof points and wisdom and experience and all of that eventually converges on that decision point. First of all, you've got to know that there's a decision to be made. But then, and I certainly this was very clear with you, that's when the, that's when your work begins. Now you have to interpret it and you have to act on it and you have to expand on it and you have to now be able to execute and course correct again and again. So for me it is art, but it is also as, as art as it is much art over science. It's also dynamic over static. And that's the one thing that I took away from this.

Speaker B: Yeah, yeah, no, I think dynamic adapting and actually that's being embraced in science a lot more. The um, you know, the clinical trials that are being done during COVID of new treatments, they are enormously dynamic. They were testing trials and then dropping some things as they turned out not to be very good at bringing new ones in. You know, people being randomized into multiple trials. They were starting and stopping all over the cool platform trials. They just. There's a whole platform with hundreds of hospitals all participating, thousands of patients and they're just constantly starting and stopping investigations. Enormously dynamic and adaptive and had fantastic results. So those ideas, I suppose the old fashioned, oh, we're going to sit down and we're going to do one big trial and it's going to carry on for years. No, you've got to be move fast, move fast and very agile world, but yet in a scientifically rigorous way so you can, you can do these things. And um, so you identified those features very well.

Speaker D: Well, his name is uh, is uh, Professor Sir David Spiegelhalter. But, but, but I like to call him Professor Risk. And uh, and his book is called uh, the Art of Uncertainty. How to Navigate Chance Ignorance, Risk, uh, and luck. Buy uh, it, buy it now and uh, and follow him on Xpiegel. Uh, uh, um, the things you may have expected or or not expected. Uh, from this interview I hope we surprised and delighted but I will leave you with the arbiter, the person that generally uh, determines whether our guest was a winner or not. And that is Chuck Norris. You are Chuck Norris. Norris approved. And we will be back. Take care everyone. Bye bye.

Speaker G: Thank you for watching the show about hope, positivity, optimism and if there's time left over, a little bit of marketing with your host, multiple author and global keynote speaker, Joseph Jaffe. If you like the show, tell a friend or two. Please subscribe to the show and if you want to get inside news, previews of upcoming guests and much more more. Visit Joseph jaffe.com subscribe to sign up for the show's newsletter

Speaker B: and despite the best ministrations of your wife, you still look ugly.

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