Fooled by Randomness: The Hidden Role of Chance in Life and in the Markets: Difference between revisions

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 {{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.

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. {{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 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.