Bill James on Baseball, Facts, and the Rules of the Game

EconTalk

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4.7 • 4.3K Ratings

🗓️ 14 January 2018

⏱️ 62 minutes

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Summary

Baseball stats guru and author Bill James talks with EconTalk host Russ Roberts about the challenges of understanding complexity in baseball and elsewhere. James reflects on the lessons he has learned as a long-time student of data and the role it plays in understanding the underlying reality that exists between different variables in sports and outside of sports. The conversation closes with a discussion of our understanding of social processes and the connection to public policy and the ideologies we hold.

Transcript

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0:00.0	Welcome to Econ Talk, part of the Library of Economics and Liberty.
0:08.1	I'm your host, Russ Roberts of Stanford University's Hoover Institution.
0:12.7	Our website is econtalk.org where you can subscribe, comment on this podcast, and find
0:17.6	links and other information related to today's conversation.
0:20.6	We'll also find our archives where you can listen to every episode we've ever done going
0:24.9	back to 2006.
0:27.1	Our email address is mailadycontalk.org.
0:29.6	We'd love to hear from you.
0:33.8	To his December 1, 2017, and I want to encourage all listeners to fill out your end of your
0:38.3	survey where you can vote on your favorite episodes of 2017, please go to econtalk.org and
0:44.6	you'll find a link in the upper left-hand corner.
0:47.5	My guest today is Bill James, the man who brought serious data analysis to baseball and
0:52.6	his work revolutionized how we see the sport.
0:55.7	His perspective has since spread to other sports.
0:58.0	He has reduced ignorance and spread light.
1:00.3	And in my case, help me teach my children about how the world works using baseball, which
1:04.5	they love to help them understand the challenges of thinking about uncertainty and probability.
1:09.9	He's the author of numerous books on baseball and outside of baseball, including crime.
1:13.9	His website is billjamesonline.com.
1:15.9	Bill, welcome to Econ Talk.
1:17.9	Thanks for having me on.
1:20.9	Our topic for today will be baseball, but we're going to cover a lot of other stuff because
	...

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