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Leonard Mlodinow

The Drunkard's Walk

People have great problems in understanding randomness - we tend to invent patterns when there aren't any. In The Drunkard's Walk: How Randomness Rules Our Lives Leonard Mlodinow explains many of our misconceptions

Mlodinow gives lots of examples of how people have got it wrong when dealing with probabilities. You may have come across some of them before - the Monty Hall problem is a classic one - but you're likely to find some which you haven't seen before. I don't think that he get's everything right though. He claims that a lottery in 1920's New York which used the last 5 digits of the US treasury balance could have been gamed by someone who knew Benford's law - sorry I don't buy that.

The book goes on to describe some of the history of probability and statistics - the lives of Cardano, Pascal, and the Reverend Thomas Bayes. Mlodinow also looks at how statistics became important in running our lives, and at what can go wrong when we try to measure something.

I would say that the final chapter is the most important one of the book. Here Mlodinow argues that understanding randomness isn't just about obscure puzzles - its central to what happens in our lives. Analysis made with hindsight may just be trying to make sense of random events - but people believe it, and it may well become self fulfilling. It's an important message, in a book which is enjoyable and easy to read.

Note: This book is on the shortlist for the 2009 Royal Society Prize for Science Books

Amazon.com info

Paperback 272 pages
ISBN: 0307275175
Salesrank: 2519
Weight:0.5 lbs

Published: 2009 Vintage

Amazon price $10.20

Marketplace:New from $7.48:Used from $7.47

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Amazon.co.uk info

Hardcover 272 pages
ISBN: 0713999225
Salesrank: 252228
Weight:1.19 lbs

Published: 2008 Allen Lane

Marketplace:New from £20.59

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Amazon.ca info

Paperback 272 pages
ISBN: 0307275175
Salesrank: 1400
Weight:0.5 lbs

Published: 2009 Vintage

Amazon price CDN$ 12.64

Marketplace:New from CDN$ 5.63:Used from CDN$ 7.83

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Product Description
With the born storyteller's command of narrative and imaginative approach, Leonard Mlodinow vividly demonstrates how our lives are profoundly informed by chance and randomness and how everything from wine ratings and corporate success to school grades and political polls are less reliable than we believe. By showing us the true nature of chance and revealing the psychological illusions that cause us to misjudge the world around us, Mlodinow gives us the tools we need to make more informed decisions. From the classroom to the courtroom and from financial markets to supermarkets, Mlodinow's intriguing and illuminating look at how randomness, chance, and probability affect our daily lives will intrigue, awe, and inspire.

Product Description

With the born storyteller's command of narrative and imaginative approach, Leonard Mlodinow vividly demonstrates how our lives are profoundly informed by chance and randomness and how everything from wine ratings and corporate success to school grades and political polls are less reliable than we believe.

By showing us the true nature of chance and revealing the psychological illusions that cause us to misjudge the world around us, Mlodinow gives us the tools we need to make more informed decisions. From the classroom to the courtroom and from financial markets to supermarkets, Mlodinow's intriguing and illuminating look at how randomness, chance, and probability affect our daily lives will intrigue, awe, and inspire.

Too Sober ****
Another book trying to escape a book. Mlodinow desperately wants to push the theme: humans make errors because they are not only not wired to incorporate random outcomes in their analysis, but also are wired to impart patterns to outcomes that are actually random. The law of small numbers is an example of this. This is the double wammy that makes us dumber than rats in some behavioral studies. Unfortunately, the author barely comes close. Instead, 80% of the book covers the history of probabilistic thinking through statistics through the mathematics of error which culminates into the useful math of statistical mechanics. The stories and anecdotes, Dr. Mlodinow (who has collaborated twice with Hawking!) relates are wonderful and well-told. The progression is thoughtful and coherent and interesting. Yet, the text stops well short of the math of "decision analysis,"which makes the chit-chat on poor human thinking beneath many other authors from both breezy and mathematical perspectives. The modern editorial decision to exclude even one mathematical expression from a book on mathematics or even an illustration limits the work. While the book might read well on a Kindle(tm), books on this topic should be on an iPad/web with hyperlinks. The irony of an exceptionally intelligent author writing about the limits of human action, using weak tools that he emasculates even further, doesn't bring a smile to my face. While this review sounds negative, it should be noted that The Drunkard's Walk is better than the average pop science/math book. Learning about Cardano's development of outcomes in a sample space was inspiring and the restatement of the importance of Bayes, without putting him down, was uplifting. This helped counter the exasperation of reading about Bernoulli's golden theorem four times without being told what it was. De Moivre was mentioned and more could have been said of Polya's role in fully proving De Moivre's Central Limit Theorem, but 20th century math doesn't exist in the book! In summary, Mlodinow's book joins other pop books in providing one very important value: it is a quick read that provides scaffolding for a reader, not to go further intentionally, but to allow advanced work a home in the brain later. For example, decades ago, if I had known of Riemann's great contribution to geometry, I would have realized in the years ahead why I was being taught particular items and they would have stuck better.

Too Sober ****

Another book trying to escape a book. Mlodinow desperately wants to push the theme: humans make errors because they are not only not wired to incorporate random outcomes in their analysis, but also are wired to impart patterns to outcomes that are actually random. The law of small numbers is an example of this. This is the double wammy that makes us dumber than rats in some behavioral studies. Unfortunately, the author barely comes close. Instead, 80% of the book covers the history of probabilistic thinking through statistics through the mathematics of error which culminates into the useful math of statistical mechanics.

The stories and anecdotes, Dr. Mlodinow (who has collaborated twice with Hawking!) relates are wonderful and well-told. The progression is thoughtful and coherent and interesting. Yet, the text stops well short of the math of "decision analysis,"which makes the chit-chat on poor human thinking beneath many other authors from both breezy and mathematical perspectives.

The modern editorial decision to exclude even one mathematical expression from a book on mathematics or even an illustration limits the work. While the book might read well on a Kindle(tm), books on this topic should be on an iPad/web with hyperlinks. The irony of an exceptionally intelligent author writing about the limits of human action, using weak tools that he emasculates even further, doesn't bring a smile to my face.

While this review sounds negative, it should be noted that The Drunkard's Walk is better than the average pop science/math book. Learning about Cardano's development of outcomes in a sample space was inspiring and the restatement of the importance of Bayes, without putting him down, was uplifting. This helped counter the exasperation of reading about Bernoulli's golden theorem four times without being told what it was. De Moivre was mentioned and more could have been said of Polya's role in fully proving De Moivre's Central Limit Theorem, but 20th century math doesn't exist in the book!

In summary, Mlodinow's book joins other pop books in providing one very important value: it is a quick read that provides scaffolding for a reader, not to go further intentionally, but to allow advanced work a home in the brain later. For example, decades ago, if I had known of Riemann's great contribution to geometry, I would have realized in the years ahead why I was being taught particular items and they would have stuck better.

Very Well Written, Accessible, and Interesting Book *****
This book is a fascinating treatment of the topic of randomness. The author does an excellent job bringing the concepts of randomness to life with thought provoking examples. Some commonly held presumptions are convincingly dispelled (improved performance after reprimands are simply cases of regression to the mean), some head spinning logic puzzles are explained (see the example about the game show and the three doors), and some intriguing stories are told (like the Australian contingent who attempted to buy every possible combination of lottery numbers). One of the author's central tenets is that randomness has much more of an impact on results than we would like to believe. A CEO's great or poor performance is not solely a reflection of their ability. Neither Roger Maris breaking Babe Ruth's home run record and Bill Miller's incredible stock picking performance should be considered surprising based on the large population of attempts. The author is at his best, however, when he is able to utilize randomness to come up with seemingly paradoxical results. For example, if an HIV test has a 1/1000 chance of resulting in a false positive, someone who tests positive may only have a 9% chance of truly being positive! For those interested in learning more about the history of science and mathematics, the author's previous work "Euclid's Window" is an outstanding and accessible treatment that should be a must read for any enthusiast of the topic.

Very Well Written, Accessible, and Interesting Book *****

This book is a fascinating treatment of the topic of randomness. The author does an excellent job bringing the concepts of randomness to life with thought provoking examples. Some commonly held presumptions are convincingly dispelled (improved performance after reprimands are simply cases of regression to the mean), some head spinning logic puzzles are explained (see the example about the game show and the three doors), and some intriguing stories are told (like the Australian contingent who attempted to buy every possible combination of lottery numbers). One of the author's central tenets is that randomness has much more of an impact on results than we would like to believe. A CEO's great or poor performance is not solely a reflection of their ability. Neither Roger Maris breaking Babe Ruth's home run record and Bill Miller's incredible stock picking performance should be considered surprising based on the large population of attempts. The author is at his best, however, when he is able to utilize randomness to come up with seemingly paradoxical results. For example, if an HIV test has a 1/1000 chance of resulting in a false positive, someone who tests positive may only have a 9% chance of truly being positive!

For those interested in learning more about the history of science and mathematics, the author's previous work "Euclid's Window" is an outstanding and accessible treatment that should be a must read for any enthusiast of the topic.

This book captures the notion of Randomness and Probabilty *****
A great read for one who is interested in comprehending Randomness,Probability,and Certainty. I read this book three times,each time grasping more of the fundamentals and laws governing these concepts.I purchased six additional copies of this book and distributed them to my friends.

This book captures the notion of Randomness and Probabilty *****

A great read for one who is interested in comprehending Randomness,Probability,and Certainty. I read this book three times,each time grasping more of the fundamentals and laws governing these concepts.I purchased six additional copies of this book and distributed them to my friends.

Is Randomness Random? ***
One can argue that being drunk and letting go of our inhibitions makes us do random things. If so, we're surrounded by all things random in a drunken stupor. This book explores all things random in fashion where nothing really is random at all. Perhaps it is in man's nature to understand. Why we are not able to accept randomness because we then lose control. Perhaps. The ideas presented in the book are interesting enough where you start looking around at your surroundings to notice what appear random or not so random. Its a bit ironic. See, all things random, we throw mathematics, science, statistics and probabilities at it. Mathematicians over centuries and centuries have been studying random phenomenon. So yes, randomness rules our lives but are they truly random any more if we're really able to approach it in a scientific method and label it with a probability of likelihood an event will occur? In the end, the only probability that rules our lives is 50/50. Whether it will happen, or not. Whether you do, or don't. As Shakespeare's Hamlet states, "To be or not to be..."

Is Randomness Random? ***

One can argue that being drunk and letting go of our inhibitions makes us do random things. If so, we're surrounded by all things random in a drunken stupor. This book explores all things random in fashion where nothing really is random at all.

Perhaps it is in man's nature to understand. Why we are not able to accept randomness because we then lose control. Perhaps.

The ideas presented in the book are interesting enough where you start looking around at your surroundings to notice what appear random or not so random. Its a bit ironic.

See, all things random, we throw mathematics, science, statistics and probabilities at it. Mathematicians over centuries and centuries have been studying random phenomenon.

So yes, randomness rules our lives but are they truly random any more if we're really able to approach it in a scientific method and label it with a probability of likelihood an event will occur?

In the end, the only probability that rules our lives is 50/50. Whether it will happen, or not. Whether you do, or don't. As Shakespeare's Hamlet states, "To be or not to be..."

Interesting read ****
I have not finished the book, yet, but I find it to be an interesting and thought-provoking read. Despite all careful planning, fortuitous circumstances play a major role in our successes as well as our failures or changes of direction.

Interesting read ****

I have not finished the book, yet, but I find it to be an interesting and thought-provoking read. Despite all careful planning, fortuitous circumstances play a major role in our successes as well as our failures or changes of direction.

A fantastic guide through the History of Randomness *****
Here is a fantastic guide through the human race's attempts to understand the complexities of events which are Random. A very good book where you can read about the a little about the lives of those who changed our understanding for the better and I recommend it to anyone with a interest in understanding randomness. The book is very well written and flows nicely.

A fantastic guide through the History of Randomness *****

Here is a fantastic guide through the human race's attempts to understand the complexities of events which are Random. A very good book where you can read about the a little about the lives of those who changed our understanding for the better and I recommend it to anyone with a interest in understanding randomness.
The book is very well written and flows nicely.

An excellent analysis of the history of Randomness *****
As an unlikely (but still possible) opening event to my contact with this book, I reveived it through the mail from Amazon without having ordered it and with no invoice. Having read it I was suitably impressed with it's historical accuracy, depth, and interesting viewpoint. Indeed, randomess is an aspect of scientific theory that experimentation's biggest challenge is dialing out. We have always been taught to try and avoid it as vehemently as possible in order to deepen the trust we bear on our randomness-free research results. Mlodinow's whole viewpoint is one of understanding randomness and tailoring our understanding to embrace it rather than avoid it, and as such it offers an enriched and amusing new perspective on the application of modern scientific method, and life in general. As a beautiful side-effect of reading this book, you'll: 1) Stop trusting or believing bankers, hi-risk investors, market analysts or people who predict anything related to systems which aren't rigidly understood (financial markets, success of the film industry, fashion). 2) Realize there is so little correlation between which team is superior and which team wins the game that you'll practically lose interest in any kind of sporting contest which involves randomness-prone factors (namely people). 3) Learn to question the potential of false-positives whenever confronted by a member of the medical profession concerning any bad news you're given, particualrly when dealing with extreme cases of numerical disparity. This is not a criticsm towards doctors; more a statement that their understnding of statistics is lacking. (And understandably so, there's enough medicine for them to learn without teaching them statistics too) An excellent book with almost no scientific background required. Easy to read through, very little bias in ideology or viewpoint, with plenty of highly informative examples from antiquity to the modern days. A must buy. Alternatively, you can trust in wild chance to make one literally fall into your lap, like I did. Such is the nature of randomness!

An excellent analysis of the history of Randomness *****

As an unlikely (but still possible) opening event to my contact with this book, I reveived it through the mail from Amazon without having ordered it and with no invoice. Having read it I was suitably impressed with it's historical accuracy, depth, and interesting viewpoint. Indeed, randomess is an aspect of scientific theory that experimentation's biggest challenge is dialing out. We have always been taught to try and avoid it as vehemently as possible in order to deepen the trust we bear on our randomness-free research results. Mlodinow's whole viewpoint is one of understanding randomness and tailoring our understanding to embrace it rather than avoid it, and as such it offers an enriched and amusing new perspective on the application of modern scientific method, and life in general.

As a beautiful side-effect of reading this book, you'll:

1) Stop trusting or believing bankers, hi-risk investors, market analysts or people who predict anything related to systems which aren't rigidly understood (financial markets, success of the film industry, fashion).

2) Realize there is so little correlation between which team is superior and which team wins the game that you'll practically lose interest in any kind of sporting contest which involves randomness-prone factors (namely people).

3) Learn to question the potential of false-positives whenever confronted by a member of the medical profession concerning any bad news you're given, particualrly when dealing with extreme cases of numerical disparity. This is not a criticsm towards doctors; more a statement that their understnding of statistics is lacking. (And understandably so, there's enough medicine for them to learn without teaching them statistics too)

An excellent book with almost no scientific background required. Easy to read through, very little bias in ideology or viewpoint, with plenty of highly informative examples from antiquity to the modern days. A must buy.

Alternatively, you can trust in wild chance to make one literally fall into your lap, like I did. Such is the nature of randomness!

Failed intuition ****
This book is an excellent read - an easy read of the history of the field of probability and full of great stories of human failures to properly consider the odds. My only criticism is that whilst the book has numerous citations, some of these suffer from the same intuitive failings, or incomplete research as the author is attempting to demonstrate.

Failed intuition ****

This book is an excellent read - an easy read of the history of the field of probability and full of great stories of human failures to properly consider the odds. My only criticism is that whilst the book has numerous citations, some of these suffer from the same intuitive failings, or incomplete research as the author is attempting to demonstrate.

The flaw is in the title ***
Certain as it is that randomness plays a vital role in our existence and can rule temporarily, and in the existence of individuals, it is equally certain that randomness cannot rule our lives in general. Indeed the reverse is so much the case that astrologists can help to sell newspapers and human individuals, the most autonomous life forms, have a hard time breaking free from causality. Think it through, the title of this book is an oxymoron. Rule is based on discipline. Plurality, aggregation and basic geometry decide the patterns that randomness will form in any set of related dimensions. The dynamic progression inevitably explores the possibilities guided by probability in the limits of the relationships and effective boundaries. Absolutes we can leave aside, but the effective results of material creation are not random. Otherwise, no complaints.

The flaw is in the title ***

Certain as it is that randomness plays a vital role in our existence and can rule temporarily, and in the existence of individuals, it is equally certain that randomness cannot rule our lives in general. Indeed the reverse is so much the case that astrologists can help to sell newspapers and human individuals, the most autonomous life forms, have a hard time breaking free from causality. Think it through, the title of this book is an oxymoron. Rule is based on discipline.

Plurality, aggregation and basic geometry decide the patterns that randomness will form in any set of related dimensions. The dynamic progression inevitably explores the possibilities guided by probability in the limits of the relationships and effective boundaries. Absolutes we can leave aside, but the effective results of material creation are not random. Otherwise, no complaints.

A fantastic Non-fiction book *****
This book is the perfect book for people wanting to understand how randomness and probability affects us in day to day life. It's highly educational and assists in understanding probability for the less mathematically able yet provides interesting facts and insights for those with a mathematical mind. The book is excellent at showing how awful our minds are at understanding probability, and may help some readers with their daily decisions by analyzing their choices in a more mathematical manner instead of on gut instinct alone - decreasing the frequency of logical fallacies that are rife in the minds of today. Mlodinow is a genius in his humor, a humor that is found on a higher level and requires a keen eye to understand yet with more simple humorous anecdotes and comments also included in the book. Overall this book is an extremely good purchase, it's also taking me a while to read; despite being a keen reader this book is so interesting yet semi-complicated to understand it's taking me a long time to read - which isn't by any means a bad thing, on the contrary, it's only spacing out how long I enjoy it for!

A fantastic Non-fiction book *****

This book is the perfect book for people wanting to understand how randomness and probability affects us in day to day life. It's highly educational and assists in understanding probability for the less mathematically able yet provides interesting facts and insights for those with a mathematical mind.

The book is excellent at showing how awful our minds are at understanding probability, and may help some readers with their daily decisions by analyzing their choices in a more mathematical manner instead of on gut instinct alone - decreasing the frequency of logical fallacies that are rife in the minds of today.

Mlodinow is a genius in his humor, a humor that is found on a higher level and requires a keen eye to understand yet with more simple humorous anecdotes and comments also included in the book.

Overall this book is an extremely good purchase, it's also taking me a while to read; despite being a keen reader this book is so interesting yet semi-complicated to understand it's taking me a long time to read - which isn't by any means a bad thing, on the contrary, it's only spacing out how long I enjoy it for!

Insightful ****
Given that I'm predisposed toward mathematical determinism, I found this book both insightful and thought provoking.

Insightful ****

Given that I'm predisposed toward mathematical determinism, I found this book both insightful and thought provoking.

"Wild guesses codified as likely outcomes" ****
For those of us who trust our instincts, this book will show us the error of our ways. You may wonder whether a book about probability could hold your interest but physicist and author Leonard Mlodinow starts out gently and builds his argument that life is more random than we ever knew. At the same time he offers some reasoning tools that can improve our decision-making. The Drunkard's Walk: How Randomness Rules Our Lives is structured loosely around a history of probability theory. Some of the biographical material about early thinkers in the field--Cardano, Fermat, Pascal to name a few--is essential to the story of how our modern concepts developed, but more forgettable than the concepts arising from their work. Mlodinow uses a wide variety of examples to illustrate the availability bias, the meaning of the sample space, and the law of large numbers; the latter states that the larger the sample, the more the average converges toward the expected value. The more times you toss a coin, in other words, the closer the number of heads will be to 50% of the tosses. That's one you could assume through intuition, but did you know that it took Jacob Bernoulli 20 years to prove it mathematically? And while the probability of flipping five heads in a row is ... well, not small (this is not a book about math), the odds of the sixth coin toss being a head is still 50%. Mlodinow makes fairly interesting work of the "Monty question:" if you are on "Let's Make a Deal" and choose door #1 for a grand prize, and before revealing your choice Monty Hall opens door #2 to reveal a goat, then offers you the chance to switch to door #3, should you switch? You may be surprised to know that your odds of the grand prize are better if you DO switch. If you want to know why, read this book. The reader is handled gently as the discussion moves to statistics and the random distribution, or bell curve; and to the "drunkard's walk" of molecules moving through a liquid or gas. I promise you that it's all more interesting than it sounds, and while I'm not about to take my new insights to the roulette wheel or the Lotto machines, I did spend a happy nine hours listening to the unabridged audio. Given Mlodinow's credentials as Caltech visiting lecturer and coauthor (with Stephen Hawking) of "A Briefer History of Time," I hope it's safe to say that this book simplifies without distorting the subject matter. It certainly entertains without over-taxing the reader's comprehension. Linda Bulger, 2010

"Wild guesses codified as likely outcomes" ****

For those of us who trust our instincts, this book will show us the error of our ways. You may wonder whether a book about probability could hold your interest but physicist and author Leonard Mlodinow starts out gently and builds his argument that life is more random than we ever knew. At the same time he offers some reasoning tools that can improve our decision-making.

The Drunkard's Walk: How Randomness Rules Our Lives is structured loosely around a history of probability theory. Some of the biographical material about early thinkers in the field--Cardano, Fermat, Pascal to name a few--is essential to the story of how our modern concepts developed, but more forgettable than the concepts arising from their work. Mlodinow uses a wide variety of examples to illustrate the availability bias, the meaning of the sample space, and the law of large numbers; the latter states that the larger the sample, the more the average converges toward the expected value. The more times you toss a coin, in other words, the closer the number of heads will be to 50% of the tosses. That's one you could assume through intuition, but did you know that it took Jacob Bernoulli 20 years to prove it mathematically? And while the probability of flipping five heads in a row is ... well, not small (this is not a book about math), the odds of the sixth coin toss being a head is still 50%.

Mlodinow makes fairly interesting work of the "Monty question:" if you are on "Let's Make a Deal" and choose door #1 for a grand prize, and before revealing your choice Monty Hall opens door #2 to reveal a goat, then offers you the chance to switch to door #3, should you switch? You may be surprised to know that your odds of the grand prize are better if you DO switch. If you want to know why, read this book. The reader is handled gently as the discussion moves to statistics and the random distribution, or bell curve; and to the "drunkard's walk" of molecules moving through a liquid or gas.

I promise you that it's all more interesting than it sounds, and while I'm not about to take my new insights to the roulette wheel or the Lotto machines, I did spend a happy nine hours listening to the unabridged audio. Given Mlodinow's credentials as Caltech visiting lecturer and coauthor (with Stephen Hawking) of "A Briefer History of Time," I hope it's safe to say that this book simplifies without distorting the subject matter. It certainly entertains without over-taxing the reader's comprehension.

Linda Bulger, 2010

A tough read **
I read quite a lot of books like this and I found this one of the most difficult to understand. Each chapter covers a different topic, some just don't make a lot of sense to me, BUT more importantly, most are much better explained elsewhere. For example, on randomness, Fooled by Randomness: The Hidden Role of Chance in Life and in the Markets by Nassim Nicholas Taleb is much better and a great read.

A tough read **

I read quite a lot of books like this and I found this one of the most difficult to understand. Each chapter covers a different topic, some just don't make a lot of sense to me, BUT more importantly, most are much better explained elsewhere.

For example, on randomness, Fooled by Randomness: The Hidden Role of Chance in Life and in the Markets by Nassim Nicholas Taleb is much better and a great read.

A real life brush with randomness ****
Coincidently, a few days after reading this book, in Jan 2009, the Nebraska Pick 3 Lottery had the same 3 numbers (out of 9) drawn in the exact same sequence two days in a row. The newspapers reported that this was a 'one in a million' chance. I attempted to use Pascal's triangle to calculate whether or not this was true and, not surprisingly, got stumped. My 'gut' said that no, this was much less than a 'one in a million chance'. So I did what any math geek (my words) would do and that was to email Professor Mlodinow (he included his email address in the jacket cover). Within a few days, he responded and confirmed my gut feeling. In fact, picking the winning combination the FIRST time was a one in a million chance but picking it again, was only a one in 1000 chance. It confirmed the basic premise of the book which is that things we think are random, may not be....just do the math.

A real life brush with randomness ****

Coincidently, a few days after reading this book, in Jan 2009, the Nebraska Pick 3 Lottery had the same 3 numbers (out of 9) drawn in the exact same sequence two days in a row. The newspapers reported that this was a 'one in a million' chance. I attempted to use Pascal's triangle to calculate whether or not this was true and, not surprisingly, got stumped. My 'gut' said that no, this was much less than a 'one in a million chance'. So I did what any math geek (my words) would do and that was to email Professor Mlodinow (he included his email address in the jacket cover). Within a few days, he responded and confirmed my gut feeling. In fact, picking the winning combination the FIRST time was a one in a million chance but picking it again, was only a one in 1000 chance. It confirmed the basic premise of the book which is that things we think are random, may not be....just do the math.

Look elsewhere -- contains errors **
The book is decently written and compelling... but also contains at least one significant error in both math and understanding near the beginning of the book that destroyed the author's credibility for me. Several chapters later, I found it impossible to continue. The passage that began my doubts was: "Kahneman and Tversky found that 91% of the doctors believed a clot was less likely to cause just a rare symptom than it was to cause a combination of the rare symptom and a common one." The doctors are right: given two independent events, one with a low probability and one with a high probability, it is more probable that the low probability event will happen in tandem with the high probability event than all by itself.

Look elsewhere -- contains errors **

The book is decently written and compelling... but also contains at least one significant error in both math and understanding near the beginning of the book that destroyed the author's credibility for me. Several chapters later, I found it impossible to continue.

The passage that began my doubts was: "Kahneman and Tversky found that 91% of the doctors believed a clot was less likely to cause just a rare symptom than it was to cause a combination of the rare symptom and a common one."

The doctors are right: given two independent events, one with a low probability and one with a high probability, it is more probable that the low probability event will happen in tandem with the high probability event than all by itself.