Taleb's Black Swan has its fair share of problems. Quite a few parts of
this book tend to step into the wrong side of personal, and its length is not
equally balanced by its scope. To make matters worse Taleb spends the first 80
pages of this book stating the problem of induction. The books main problem
though could be ascribed to something Taleb never actually puts into words –
the attribution of this book to the genre of 'Popular Science'. Economists jokes
aside, this is not a popular science book – it is not wide enough in scope, and
not as half as coherent and robust as works more commonly attributed to the
genre (i.e., works by Dawkins, Penrose, Pinker and so on).
Most popular science books try using the accumulated wealth of knowledge
in a doctrine in order to show the scope of implication of a simple theory.
Like many popular science writers Taleb has a thesis. What he lacks is a
doctrine. The plethora of facts and details are not the outcome of the theory
in this case, but rather its crutches. Even worse is the fact that there is no
real plethora here – Taleb tries to convince us that he roams freely between
Economics, Philosophy, Mathematics and Cognitive Sciences, when, in fact,
occasional name dropping aside, the philosophy is quite absent, the Economics
and Cognitive Sciences do not form a coherent whole, and the math is nearly
nonexistent. The miles long bibliographical list shows exactly that – Taleb can
speckle his book with Cicero (in Latin mind you), Umberto Eco , Russell, and
quite a few others, he may try to present himself as the tie-loose intellectual
– but at the end these are all drowned in 30 pages long list of very strictly
within disciplinary borders Economics and Cognitive sciences articles.
The failures of this evangelistic book disguised as popular science,
however, do not tell the whole story. When Taleb focuses on his life
experiences he can be very perceptive. The few pages dedicated to the hardships
of everyday life for long-term strategists, for instance, are quite outstanding
both as a literary feat and as a robust psychological-sociological hypothesis.
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