The quote at the beginning of this chapter mentions using ensembles to win machine learning competitions. However, they do have practical applications. I've provided a definition of what ensemble modeling is, but why does it work? To demonstrate this, I've co-opted an example, from the following blog, which goes into depth at a number of ensemble methods:http://mlwave.com/kaggle-ensembling-guide/.
As I write this chapter, we are only a couple of days away from Super Bowl 51, the Atlanta Falcons versus the New England Patriots. Let's say we want to review our probability of winning a friendly wager where we want to take the Patriots minus the points (3 points as of this writing). Assume that we have been following three expert prognosticators that all have the same probability of predicting that the Patriots will cover the spread (60%). Now, if we favor any one of the so-called experts, it is clear we have a 60% chance to win. However, let's see what creating an ensemble of their...