--- title: Reading ‘Radical Uncertainty’ | daily.dev description: A data scientist reflects on Kay and King's book 'Radical Uncertainty', which argues that real-world probability models are fundamentally limited because we... canonical: https://daily.dev/posts/reading-radical-uncertainty--xqhzti1nk twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:site: @dailydotdev og:type: website og:site_name: daily.dev og:title: Reading ‘Radical Uncertainty’ | daily.dev og:description: A data scientist reflects on Kay and King's book 'Radical Uncertainty', which argues that real-world probability models are fundamentally limited because we... og:url: https://daily.dev/posts/reading-radical-uncertainty--xqhzti1nk og:image: https://api.daily.dev/og/posts/xQHZti1NK.png og:image:alt: Reading ‘Radical Uncertainty’ og:image:width: 1200 og:image:height: 630 og:locale: en --- > ## Documentation Index > Fetch the complete documentation index at: https://daily.dev/llms.txt > Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further. # Reading ‘Radical Uncertainty’ **[R-bloggers](https://daily.dev/sources/rbloggers)** · 14 min read · 0 upvotes · 0 comments ## Summary A data scientist reflects on Kay and King's book 'Radical Uncertainty', which argues that real-world probability models are fundamentally limited because we often don't know the full set of possible outcomes (Knightian uncertainty). The post critiques some of the book's statistical reasoning — particularly its dismissal of probability calculations as 'meaningless' and apparent unfamiliarity with Bayesian statistics — while also extending the book's ideas. A third type of uncertainty (knowing outcomes but not probabilities) is introduced, and a verisimilitude-based framework is used to show mathematically why the book's 'reference narrative' approach can outperform naive Bayesian models under radical uncertainty. The post also explores why economic forecasts persist despite being unreliable, framing forecasting as a coordination mechanism akin to religion. ## Full article daily.dev links to this article rather than hosting it. Read it at the original source: ## Similar posts on daily.dev - [Uncertainty in Machine Learning: Probability & Noise](https://daily.dev/posts/uncertainty-in-machine-learning-probability-noise-zlvwhs5ee) · Machine Learning Mastery · 4 upvotes · 0 comments - [When the Uncertainty Is Bigger Than the Shock: Scenario Modelling for English Local Elections](https://daily.dev/posts/when-the-uncertainty-is-bigger-than-the-shock-scenario-modelling-for-english-local-elections-ior5mivma) · Towards Data Science · 1 upvotes · 0 comments - [Bayesian Guardrails for AI Decisions: Measuring Uncertainty Before Automating Decisions](https://daily.dev/posts/bayesian-guardrails-for-ai-decisions-measuring-uncertainty-before-automating-decisions-bpwxolimh) · Towards Data Science · 0 upvotes · 0 comments --- [View this post on daily.dev](https://daily.dev/posts/reading-radical-uncertainty--xqhzti1nk) ```json {"@context":"https://schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"Organization","@id":"https://daily.dev/#organization","name":"daily.dev","url":"https://daily.dev","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://daily.dev/apple-touch-icon.png","width":180,"height":180},"sameAs":["https://twitter.com/dailydotdev","https://github.com/dailydotdev","https://www.linkedin.com/company/daily-dev-ltd"]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https://daily.dev/#website","url":"https://daily.dev","name":"daily.dev","publisher":{"@id":"https://daily.dev/#organization"},"potentialAction":{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https://daily.dev/search?q={search_term_string}"},"query-input":"required name=search_term_string"}}]} {"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"TechArticle","headline":"Reading ‘Radical Uncertainty’","url":"https://daily.dev/posts/reading-radical-uncertainty--xqhzti1nk","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://daily.dev/posts/reading-radical-uncertainty--xqhzti1nk"},"datePublished":"2026-07-19T11:11:44.614Z","dateModified":"2026-07-19T11:12:06.130Z","description":"A data scientist reflects on Kay and King's book 'Radical Uncertainty', which argues that real-world probability models are fundamentally limited because we...","image":"https://media.daily.dev/image/upload/s--qPvKM23u--/f_auto/v1722860399/public/Placeholder%2009","thumbnailUrl":"https://media.daily.dev/image/upload/s--qPvKM23u--/f_auto/v1722860399/public/Placeholder%2009","isAccessibleForFree":true,"articleSection":"R-bloggers","inLanguage":"en","publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"daily.dev","url":"https://daily.dev","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://daily.dev/apple-touch-icon.png","width":180,"height":180}},"author":{"@type":"Organization","name":"R-bloggers","logo":"https://media.daily.dev/image/upload/t_logo,f_auto/v1/logos/98bcbbdf72774292a55ceda8f2277f1e","url":"https://daily.dev/sources/rbloggers"},"commentCount":0,"discussionUrl":"https://daily.dev/posts/reading-radical-uncertainty--xqhzti1nk","interactionStatistic":[{"@type":"InteractionCounter","interactionType":{"@type":"LikeAction"},"userInteractionCount":0},{"@type":"InteractionCounter","interactionType":{"@type":"CommentAction"},"userInteractionCount":0}],"keywords":"","timeRequired":"PT14M"} {"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https://daily.dev"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"R-bloggers","item":"https://daily.dev/sources/rbloggers"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":3,"name":"Reading ‘Radical Uncertainty’"}]} ```