Fooled by Randomness

After all, this business of journalism is about pure entertainment, not a search for truth, particularly when it comes to radio and television. The trick is to stay away from those who do not seem to know that they are just entertainers (like George Will, who will appear in Chapter 2) and actually believe that they are thinkers.

to stick one’s neck out for a given belief

we underestimate the share of randomness in about everything

are paid to read too much into things.

the right time and the right plac

The formation of our beliefs is fraught with superstitions—even today

Such confusion crops up in the most unexpected areas, even science

luck disguised and perceived as nonluck

quote that did not naturally spring from my memory

comes straight from the gut

round-trip fallacy”: It is a mistake to use, as journalists and some economists do, statistics without logic, but the reverse does not hold: It is not a mistake to use logic without statistics). If I write that I doubt that my neighbor’s success is devoid of some measure, small or large, of luck, owing to the randomness in his profession, I do not need to “test” it—the Russian roulette thought experiment suffices.

That all millionaires were persistent, hardworking people does not make persistent hard workers become millionaires: Plenty of unsuccessful entrepreneurs were persistent, hardworking people.

the fact that every intelligent, hardworking, persevering person becomes successful does not imply that every successful person is necessarily an intelligent, hardworking, persevering person (it is remarkable how such a primitive logical fallacy—affirming the consequent—can be made by otherwise very intelligent people, a point I discuss in this edition as the “two systems of reasoning” problem).

a matter of fact, I spent all my career attacking the quantitative use of probability. While Chapters13 and 14 (dealing with skepticism and stoicism) are to me the central ideas of the book

Furthermore, as most successes are caused by very few “windows of opportunity,” failing to grab one can be deadly for one’s career. Take your luck!

Scientists investigated half a century ago the phenomena of “experts” not learning about their past failings. You can mispredict everything for all your life yet think that you will get it right next time.)

How? Probability is not a mere computation of odds on the dice or more complicated variants; it is the acceptance of the lack of certainty in our knowledge and the development of methods for dealing with our ignorance

Aut tace aut loquere meliora silencio (only when the words outperform silence).

am not capable of avoiding being the fool of randomness; what I can do is confine it to where it brings some aesthetic gratification.

This book is the synthesis of, on one hand, the no-nonsense practitioner of uncertainty whospen this professional life trying to resist being fooled by randomness and trick the emotions associated with probabilistic outcomes and, on the other