« I need a Vacation... | Main | Ask Slashdot »
June 9, 2008
The Black Swan
I mentioned Fooled by Randomness when I read it back in 2007 (gads, was it really that long ago?) and I just finished Taleb's second book - The Black Swan - The Impact of the Highly Improbable.
Like the first, I found it a flawed presentation with some fundamentally sound observations on how we - as humans - search for certainty where there is none, to the point of deluding ourselves into thinking we've found it, and drawing strong convictions through rational thought from faulty premises.
Less directly applied than the first ("Fooled" ostensibly focused on randomness in financial markets, The Black Swan doesn't pretend to narrow it's focus at all) it was a bit long, and slightly repetitious, but an interesting and thought-provoking read none-the-less.
Posted by dberger at June 9, 2008 6:44 PM