Fooled by Randomness

Content: pt. I: Solon\'s warning : skewness, asymmetry, induction. If you\'re so rich, why aren\'t you so smart? 
 A bizarre accounting method 
 A mathematical mediation on history 
 Randomness, nonsense, and the scientific intellectual 
 Survival of the least fit : can evolution be fooled by randomness? 
 Skewness and asymmetry 
 The problem of induction --
pt. II. Monkeys on typewriters : survivorship and other biases. Too many millionaires next door 
 It is easier to buy and sell than fry an egg 
 Loser takes all : on the nonlinearities of life 
 Randomness and our mind : we are probability blind --
pt. III. Wax in my ears : living with randomitis. Gamblers\' ticks and pigeons in a box --
Carneades comes to Rome : on probability and skepticism --
Bacchus abandons Antony --
Epilogue: Solon told you so. Preface --
Acknowledgments for the updated second edition --
Chapter summaries --
Prologue --
pt. I. Solon\'s warning : skewness, asymmetry, induction --
1. If you\'re so rich, why aren\'t you so smart? --
Nero Tulip --
Hit by lightning --
Temporary sanity --
Modus operandi --
No work ethics --
There are always secrets --
John the high-yield trader --
An overpaid hick --
The red-hot summer --
Serotonin and randomness --
You dentist is rich, very rich --
2. A bizarre accounting method --
Alternative history --
Russian roulette --
Possible worlds --
An even more vicious roulette --
Smooth peer relations --
Salvation via aeroflot --
Solon visits Regine\'s nightclub --
George Will is no Solon : on counterintuitive truths --
Humiliated in debates --
A different kind of earthquake --
Proverbs galore --
Risk managers --
Epiphenomena --
3. A mathematical mediation on history --
Europlayboy mathematics --
The tools --
Monte Carlo mathematics --
Fun in my attic --
Making history --
Zorglubs crowding the attic --
Denigration of history --
The stove is hot --
Skills in predicting past history --
My Solon --
Distilled thinking on your PalmPilot --
Breaking news --
Shiller redux --
Gerontocracy --
Philostratus in Monte Carlo : on the difference between noise and information --
4. Randomness, nonsense, and the scientific intellectual --
Randomness and the verb --
Reverse turing test --
The father of all pseudothinkers --
Monte Carlo poetry --
5. Survival of the least fit, can evolution be fooled by randomness? --
Carlos the emerging-markets wizard --
The good years --
Averaging down --
Lines in the sand --
John the high-yield trader --
The quant who knew computers and equations --
The traits they shared --
A review of market fools of randomness constants --
Naive evolutionary theories --
Can evolution be fooled by randomness? --
6. Skewness and asymmetry --
The median is not the message --
Bull and bear zoology --
An arrogant twenty-nine-year-old son --
Rare events --
Symmetry and science --
Almost everybody is above average --
The rare-event fallacy --
The mother of all deceptions --
Why don\'t statisticians detect rare events? --
A mischievous child replaces the black balls --
7. The problem of induction --
From Bacon to Hume --
Cygnus Stratus --
Nordhoff\'s --
Sir Karl\'s promoting agent --
Location, location --
Popper\'s answer --
Open society --
Nobody is perfect --
Induction and memory --
Pascal\'s wager --
Thank you, Solon. pt. II. Monkeys on typewriters : survivorship and other biases --
It depends on the number of monkeys --
Vicious real life --
This section --
8. Too many millionaires next door --
How to stop the sting of failure --
Somewhat happy --
Too much work --
You\'re a failure --
Double survivorship biases --
More experts --
Visibility winners --
It\'s a bull market --
A guru\'s opinion --
9. It is easier to buy and sell than fry an egg --
Fooled by numbers --
Placebo investors --
Nobody has to be competent --
Regression to the mean --
Ergodicity --
Life is coincidental --
The mysterious letter --
An interrupted tennis game --
Reverse survivors --
The birthday paradox --
It\'s a small world! --
Data mining, statistics, and charlatanism --
The best book I have ever read! --
The backtester --
A more unsettling extension --
The earnings season : fooled by the results --
Comparative luck --
Cancer cures --
Professor Pearson goes to Monte Carlo (literally) : randomness does not look random! --
The dog that did not bark : on biases in scientific knowledge --
I have no conclusion --
10. Loser takes all, on the nonlinearities of life --
The sandpile effect --
Enter randomness --
Learning to type --
Mathematics inside and outside the real world --
The science of networks --
Our brain --
Buridan\'s donkey or the good side of randomness --
When it rains, it pours --
11. Randomness and our mind : we are probability blind --
Paris or the Bahamas? --
Some architectural considerations --
Beware the philosopher bureaucrat --
Satisficing --
Flawed, not just imperfect --
Kahneman and Tversky --
Where is Napoleon when we need him? --
\"I\'m as good as my last trade\" and other heuristics --
Degree in a fortune cookie --
Two systems of reasoning --
Why we don\'t marry the first date --
Our natural habitat --
Fast and frugal --
Neurobiologists too --
Kafka in a courtroom --
An absurd world --
Examples of biases in understanding probability --
We are option blind --
Probabilities and the media (more journalists) --
CNBC at lunchtime --
You should be dead by now --
The Bloomberg explanations --
Filtering methods --
We do not understand confidence levels --
An admission. pt. III. Wax in my ears : living with randomitis --
I am not so intelligent --
Wittgenstein\'s ruler --
The Odyssean mute command --
12. Gamblers\' ticks and pigeons in a box --
Taxi-cab English and causality --
The Skinner pigeon experiment --
Philostratus redux --
13. Carneades comes to Rome : on probability and skepticism --
Carneades comes to Rome --
Probability, the child of skepticism --
Monsieur de Norpois\' opinions --
Path dependence of beliefs --
Computing instead of thinking --
From funeral to funeral --
14. Bacchus abandons Antony --
Notes on Jackie O.\'s funeral --
Randomness and personal elegance --
Epilogue. Solon told you so --
Beware the London traffic jams --
Postscript. Three afterthoughts in the shower --
First thought : the inverse skills problem --
Second though : on some additional benefits of randomness --
Uncertainty and happiness --
The scrambling of messages --
Third thought : standing on one leg --
Acknowledgments for the first edition --
A trip to the library : notes and reading recommendations --
Notes --
References --
Index.