Naive empiricism, terrorism & Ebola.
N N Taleb's Probability Questions
Why leaders watch it
Argues that fat-tailed risks need different reasoning than ordinary statistics, helping leaders avoid misreading evidence about rare events.
Nassim Taleb argues that evidence on terrorism risk presented in media is statistically naive, using extreme value theory without math to separate fat-tailed risks like Ebola and terrorism from thin-tailed ones.
Takeaways
- Not all risks follow normal distributions
- Rare events dominate fat-tailed risks
- Be wary of naive evidence
Topics: Decision making & mental models, Systems thinking & complexity
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