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Keyword: nissamtaleb

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  • Shattering the Bell Curve; The power law rules. (Review of <i>The Black Swan</i>- not IQ related

    04/24/2007 6:04:47 PM PDT · by Excellence · 21 replies · 927+ views
    Opinion Journal ^ | April 24, 2007 | DAVID A. SHAYWITZ Author of review
    < snip >In "The Black Swan"--a kind of cri de coeur--Mr. Taleb struggles to free us from our misguided allegiance to the bell-curve mindset and awaken us to the dominance of the power law. The attractiveness of the bell curve resides in its democratic distribution and its mathematical accessibility. Collect enough data and the pattern reveals itself, allowing both robust predictions of future data points (such as the height of the next five people to enter the room) and accurate estimations of the size and frequency of extreme values (anticipating the occasional giant or dwarf. The power-law distribution, by contrast,...