N Taleb’s review of Models. Behaving.Badly: Why Confusing Illusion with Reality Can Lead to Disaster, on Wall Street and in Life

Here is what I wrote in my endorsement: Emanuel Derman has written my kind of a book, an elegant combination of memoir, confession, and essay on ethics, philosophy of science and professional practice. He convincingly establishes the difference between model and theory and shows why attempts to model financial markets can never be genuinely scientific. It vindicates those of us who hold that financial modeling is neither practical nor scientific. Exceedingly readable.

From the remarks here, people seem to be blaming Derman for not having written the type of books they usually read… They are blaming him for being original! This is very philistinic. This book is a personal essay; if you don’t like it, don’t read it, there is no need to blame the author for not delivering your regular science reporting. Why don’t you go blame Montaigne for discussing his personal habits in the middle of a meditation on war inspired by Plutarch?

via Amazon.com: N N Taleb “Nassim N Taleb”‘s review of Models.Behaving.Badly.: Why Confusing Illu….

Junglies’ review of Antifragile: Things That Gain from Disorder Amazon.com

Infuriating? The breakneck speed with which the reader engages the book reminds me of the scene in 2001 where the astronaught is propelled through the star gate. As he moves forward everything is changing around him and he is awestruck by the carnival of lights until he finds himself in a somewhat recognisable room but still changes come. Essentially what I am saying is that there is so much a reader can take at any time and the book is a Pandora’s Box, a treasure trove of ideas that it is very hard to absorb all of them as you read.

via Amazon.com: Junglies’ review of Antifragile: Things That Gain from Disorder.

Nassim Taleb is hosting a book party – Upcoming Events at Book Culture NYC

On Tuesday, February 26th at 7pm Nassim Taleb is hosting a book party.

Nassim Nicholas Taleb spent 20 years as a derivatives trader before starting a full-time career as a scholar of applied probability and risk management. Taleb’s current program is to build rules of decision-making under incomplete information and understanding, and to make political and economic systems robust to Black Swan problems. In his groundbreaking and prophetic book, Black Swan, Taleb shows in a playful way that black swan events explain almost everything about our world.

via Upcoming Events at Book Culture.