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INDEX
A
a-Platonic(ity), 125, 182, 283n, 284, 309
academic libertarianism, 183, 307
Aczel, Amir, 128
aesthetics, 62, 99, 138, 253-73, 296, 297
Al-Ghazali, 47, 171n
Alpher, Ralph, 168
Amioun, 4, 45, 65, 140, 154, 155,171,
258, 287, 288
Anderson, Chris, 223
Apelles-style strategy, 204, 295, 307
Apelles the Painter, 204, 295
Aristotle, 202
Aron, Raymond, 12
Arrow, Kenneth, 283
autism, 194, 323
Averro?s, 47, l/^ln
B
Bachelier, Louis, 282
Bacon, Sir Francis, 101, 102, 167
Bail, Philip, 267, 270
Balzac, Honoré de, 103, 104, 105
banks, 43, 123, 208, 225-26
Barabasi, Albert-Laszlo, 226
barbell strategy, 205-6, 207, 307
Barron, Gerg, 77
Bastiat, Frédéric, 111, 112, 288
Bateson, Gregory, 25
Baudelaire, Charles, 71
Baumol, William, 90
Bayle, Pierre, 48, 296
bell curve, see Gaussian distribution
Bernard, Claude, 278
Berra, Yogi, 136, 199n, 208
Berry, Michael, 178
Bethe, Hans, 168
bildungsphilister, 131, 255, 295, 307, 319
bin Laden, Osama, 16
biology, 219, 328
Black Swan, defined, xvii-xviii, xix,
xx-xxi, xxv, xxvii
Black Swan blindness, xxiii, 77-79,
141-42, 288, 307
Black Swan ethical problem, defined, 308
Bloch, Marc, 101
Bohr, Niels, 136n
3 6 0 INDEX
Bois-Reymond, Emil du, 173
Borges, Jorge Luis, 12
Bouchaud, Jean Philippe, 150
Bourdieu, Pierre, 22, 218
Braudel, Fernand, 255
Brochard, Victor, 57n
Brown, Aaron, 196
Buchanan, Mark, 267
Buck, Pearl, 222
Buffett, Warren, 183
Bush, George W., 152
Buzzati, Dino, 92
c
Caligula, xxv
Callas, Maria, 143
Camus, Albert, 104
Caravaggio, 164
Carlyle, Thomas, 198
Carneades, 274
Carr, Edward Hallett, 101, 199
Casanova, Giovanni Giacomo, 112-15,
117-19, 120
casinos, 35, 67, 109, 117, 126-28,
129-30, 238, 257, 286
Catherine II of Russia, 139, 142, 164n
causality, 46, 48, 66, 70, 75, 88, 110,
119-20, 143,314
Cavendish, Lord, 244
central limit theorem, 325
chaos theory, 176, 179, 197, 258, 323
Chardon, Lucien, 104, 105
Chevalier de Mere, 273
Christie, Agatha, 70
Churchill, Winston, 276
Cicero, Marcus Tullius, 100,102,128, 274
circularity of statistics, see statistical
regress argument
Comte, Auguste, 173
confirmation error, 50, 85, 120,129, 281,
308
Cootner, Paul, 276
Cournot, Augustin, 242
Cowan, David, 177
cumulative advantage, 217, 218, 250, 324
D
Darwin, Charles, 167, 244, 256
Darwin, Erasmus, 244
Dawes, Robyn, 81, 146
de Menasce, Pierre Jean, 255
de Moivre, Abraham, 240-41
de Rubempré, Lucien, 104, 105
De Vany, Art, 31
Debreu, Gerard, 283
Dennett, Daniel, 189, 290
derivatives, 20n, 328-29
Diagoras, 100
Dickens, Charles, 104
Dickinson, Emily, 258
Diodorus Siculus, 198
distribution, see probability distribution
Dostoyevsky, Fyodor, 104
Drogo, Giovanni, 92-93
du Gard, Roger Martin, 222
Duby, Georges, 11
Durant, Will and Ariel, 103
E
earthquakes, 35, 44, 61n, 76, 155, 211,
264, 309, 319
Eco, Umberto, 1, 140, 179, 185
economics, as "religion," 322
economists, defined, 314
econophysicists, 271, 326
empirics, 111, 182, 203-4
empty-suit problem, xx-xxi, 145-56, 308
Engel, Robert, 155
INDEX 3 6 1
entropy, 315, 328
envelope of serendipity, 209
epidemics, xviii, xxiiw, xxiv, 118, 120,
135, 220, 244
epilogism, 199, 199n, 308, 313
epistemic arrogance, 17, 138-41, 142,
145,150,165,166,190, 203, 206,
211,308
epistemic opacity, 273, 288, 308, 319
epistemocrats, 190-91, 192, 308
epistemology, 20, 49, 106, 126, 319
equilibrium, 4, 8, 210, 236, 278, 282,
283n,323
equity premium puzzle, 328
Erev, Ido, 77
erudition, 48, 125, 131n, 156, 225, 296,
323
expert problem, see empty-suit problem
exponents, 231, 250, 263-66, 267, 272,
321, 326, 328
Extremistan
and 80/20 rule, 235-36
and correlation, 239
defined, 26, 308
and Gaussian distribution, 269
genesis of, 270
and insurance, 208
and knowledge, 34
in London Business School study, 79,162
vs. Mediocristan, 33, 34, 35-37, 61,
83, 85, 233-35, 274, 280-81, 284,
320, 328
from mild to wild randomness and
back,215-28
and modern world, 61
and prediction, 149, 159
and problem of induction, 267
and R-square, 187n
and risk, 96
and scalable variables, 159
and underestimation, 142
visual approach, 259-60
and war, 324
F
fallacy of silent evidence, 50, 100-121,
131,169, 308,317
Fat Tony (fictional character), 122-25,
181
Ferguson, Niall, 14n
Fichte, Johann Gottlieb, 12, 45, 101
Fisk, Robert, 16
Fleming, Alexander, 167-68
fooled by randomness, defined, 308
Forster, E. M., 70, 76
fossil record, 318
Foucher, Simon, 274
France, Anatole, 222
Friedman, Milton, 280
Fukuyama, Francis, 101
future blindness, 194, 211, 308
G
Gaddis, William, 218
Galileo, 167, 257
Galton, Sir Francis, 244
games, 125, 127, 128,129, 251, 286, 309
Gamow, George, 168
Gates, Bill, 33, 260
Gauss, Carl Friedrich, 36n, 230, 240,
241, 243
Gaussian distribution, 36,229-52, 259-63,
269, 275-82, 288, 311, 325, 326
Gibbon, Edward, 198
Gilbert, Dan, 195, 203n
Gladwell, Malcolm, 81, 236
Glaucias of Tarentum, 182
Goethe, Johann Wolfgang von, 31
3 6 2 INDEX
Goldberg, Bruce, 32
Goldman, William, 206
Goldstein, Dan, 79, 81
Goodman, Nelson, 188
Gore, Al, 152
Grasso, Richard, xxiii
Gray Swan, 36, 37, 213, 272, 273, 309
Green, Jack, 218
Greene, Graham, 300
H
Hadamard, Jacques, 179
Hardy, G. H., 240
Hayek, Friedrich, 179-80, 181, 182, 183,
185, 277, 296
hedge funds, 43, 278
Hegel, Georg Wilhelm Friedrich, 12, 45,
101,199
Heisenberg, Werner, 287
Helenus (in The Iliad), 195-96
Herodotus, 101, 199
heuristics, 81, 158, 185, 313, 316
Hibon, Michèle, 154, 155
Hicks, John, 283
Hilbert, David, 173
Hinchcliffe, Brian, 158
historical ruptures, 9, 312
historicism, 171, 322
Hitler, Adolf, xxi
Horowitz, Vladimir, 29
Huet, Pierre-Daniel, 48, 296
Hugo, Victor, 104
Hume, David, 45, 48, 60
Hussein, Saddam, 74
I
idiot savants, 185, 279, 319, 323
incomplete information, see randomness
as incomplete information
induction, see problem of induction
inequality, 36, 108, 216, 219, 224, 227,
234-35, 263, 266, 325
insurance, 20, 77, 123, 124, 141,146,
159, 206, 208, 211, 228, 324, 325
Internet, xviii, 15, 79, 118, 135, 169, 172,
209, 223, 224, 226-27, 324
inverse problem, 268, 311
see also reverse-engineering problem
j
Jaynes, Julian, 59
Jesus of Nazareth, 11
John, Dr. (fictional character), 123-25,
181
K
Kahneman, Daniel, 53, 76, 77, 81, 116,
158,195,277
Kant, Immanuel, 45
Kelvin, Lord, 244
Kennedy, Jacqueline, 143
