I agree about the statistical issues he highlights, but his anti expert stance is kind of odd. I mean we listen to this guy because he used to be a wall street trader. His books were published because he was accepted as some kind of an expert himself. So is he wrong because he's an expert?
He says: "We replaced the heuristics of the elders with arrogant (and incompetent) beliefs, breaking, in the name of science, the chain of knowledge."
In europe we had fascisim and stalinism within the past 100 years. That's three or four generations. Before the dawn of liberalism, capitalism, enlightenment and the industrial revolution we had 1000 years of depression caused by religious fanatics. We had to break that chain of "knowledge".
The heuristics of the elders are little more than mature, cultivated cliches of what past experts and ideologues told them. Taleb is correct, it's incredibly difficult to make predictions in a complex system. However, I don't see how a blanket condemnation of science and a blanket approval of crude traditions helps us to become better at that.
He says: "We replaced the heuristics of the elders with arrogant (and incompetent) beliefs, breaking, in the name of science, the chain of knowledge."
In europe we had fascisim and stalinism within the past 100 years. That's three or four generations. Before the dawn of liberalism, capitalism, enlightenment and the industrial revolution we had 1000 years of depression caused by religious fanatics. We had to break that chain of "knowledge".
The heuristics of the elders are little more than mature, cultivated cliches of what past experts and ideologues told them. Taleb is correct, it's incredibly difficult to make predictions in a complex system. However, I don't see how a blanket condemnation of science and a blanket approval of crude traditions helps us to become better at that.