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Back to the lesson libraryMECHANISM · 14 MIN
M09.2 CONNECT THE MECHANISM

Why a simpler model can predict better

Draw a straight line, a gentle curve, and a wild curve through ten noisy tide readings. The wildest fits perfectly and predicts worst. Three numbers explain why.

LESSON OVERVIEW14 min lesson

Lesson overview

Draw a straight line, a gentle curve, and a wild curve through ten noisy tide readings. The wildest fits perfectly and predicts worst. Three numbers explain why.

What you’ll explore

  • Underfitting and overfitting describe failures of fit and transfer; bias, variance, and regularization help explain how model choices interact with sample size and noise.
GO TO THE SOURCE

Original explanations, connected to the research.

An Introduction to Statistical Learning — authors’ materialsDive into Deep Learning — authors’ open textbookPattern Recognition and Machine Learning, chapter 1 (Bishop, 2006)
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