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{{review|Fooled by Randomness: The Hidden Role of Chance in Life and in the Markets|Nassim Nicholas Taleb|Standard Deviations, repetition, but no hesitation | {{review|Fooled by Randomness: The Hidden Role of Chance in Life and in the Markets|Nassim Nicholas Taleb|March 21, 2012|Standard Deviations, repetition, but no hesitation}} | ||
Amazon provides an interesting statistical commentary on this and all other products on its site: a graphic of the relative proportions of different star ratings assigned by customer reviews. If you flip this on its side it looks a lot more like what it is: a statistical representation of customers' views of the book. | Amazon provides an interesting statistical commentary on this and all other products on its site: a graphic of the relative proportions of different star ratings assigned by customer reviews. If you flip this on its side it looks a lot more like what it is: a statistical representation of customers' views of the book. | ||
Nassim Taleb's Fooled by Randomness has an unusual "curve": a short "head" of 5 star reviews and a long tail of lesser ratings which doesn't tail off. A large standard deviation, then, against a mean of four stars, compared to {{author|Leonard Mlodinow}}'s The Drunkard's Walk: How Randomness Rules Our Lives- also a four star average, but a much more conventional distribution of grades with a tighter standard deviation (a consistent curve from 50% five star to 2% one star, against Taleb's 46% five star and 11% one star). | Nassim Taleb's Fooled by Randomness has an unusual "curve": a short "head" of 5 star reviews and a long tail of lesser ratings which doesn't tail off. A large [[standard deviation]], then, against a mean of four stars, compared to {{author|Leonard Mlodinow}}'s {{br|The Drunkard's Walk: How Randomness Rules Our Lives}} - also a four star average, but a much more conventional distribution of grades with a tighter standard deviation (a consistent curve from 50% five star to 2% one star, against Taleb's 46% five star and 11% one star). | ||
So I have learned something from this (or Mlodinow's) book. | So I have learned something from this (or Mlodinow's) book. | ||
Having being equally entertained and aggravated by Taleb's more recent The Black Swan, I was leery of picking up this earlier effort. While Taleb is undoubtedly stimulating literary company, he | Having being equally entertained and aggravated by Taleb's more recent {{br|The Black Swan}}, I was leery of picking up this earlier effort. While Taleb is undoubtedly stimulating literary company, he verges on being a crashing bore, often crossing the verge on and ramming your letterbox. He also harbours some unremedied professional grievances - the award of Nobel prizes in particular mightily irks him. Taleb's writing is constantly grandiose and egotistical - but he is self-aware enough to not only realise but celebrate that fact. | ||
So a real vegemite, love-him-or-hate-him sort of writer. Fooled By Randomness is, if anything, *more* bombastic, and its content less interesting. Its first half comprises mainly anecdotes | So a real vegemite, love-him-or-hate-him sort of writer. {{br|Fooled By Randomness}} is, if anything, *more* bombastic, and its content less interesting. Its first half comprises mainly dubious anecdotes about unnamed colleagues , and Taleb’s repeated efforts to persuade you what a voracious reader he is. (Interestingly in {{br|the Black Swan}} he places much store in his *anti-library* - the books he has ''not'' read). Taleb's early observations about [[probability]] are pat, under-explained and have been more thoroughly and less idiosyncratically expounded by others (such as {{author|Leonard Mlodinow}}’s {{br|The Drunkard's Walk: How Randomness Rules Our Lives}}). | ||
On | On occasion, Taleb's love of anecdote contradicts his own preaching. At one point he recounts a bit of "anecdotal empiricism" as to "anchoring" of expectation. "I asked the local hotel concierge how long it takes to go to the airport. "40 minutes?" I asked. "About 35" he answered. Then I asked the lady at the reception if the journey was 20 minutes. "No, about 25" she said. I timed the trip: 31 minutes. | ||
Two paragraphs later, in his next anecdote, Taleb rails against the stupidity of a man who derives conclusions from a single observation. | Two paragraphs later, in his next anecdote, Taleb rails against the stupidity of a man who derives conclusions from a single observation. | ||
There is a seam of useful information in the second half of this book, but you must wade through quite a lot of self-aggrandisement to find it, and none is unique: as mentioned, there are better presented and less irritating accounts of the same information elsewhere, so Mr Taleb may be disappointed to see yet another equivocal assessment of his book | There is a seam of useful information in the second half of this book, but you must wade through quite a lot of self-aggrandisement to find it, and none is unique: as mentioned, there are better presented and less irritating accounts of the same information elsewhere, so Mr. Taleb may be disappointed to see yet another equivocal assessment of his book. | ||
Except, he tells us, he won't be: he doesn't read or care about "amateur" reviewers | Except, he tells us, he won't be: he doesn't read or care about "amateur" reviewers anyway, so no harm done. |