What the Luck?: The Surprising Role of Chance in Our Everyday Lives
Written by Gary Smith
Narrated by Tim Andres Pabon
3.5/5
()
About this audiobook
In Israel, pilot trainees who were praised for doing well subsequently performed worse, while trainees who were yelled at for doing poorly performed better. It is an empirical fact that highly intelligent women tend to marry men who are less intelligent. Students who get the highest scores in third grade generally get lower scores in fourth grade.
And yet, it's wrong to conclude that screaming is not more effective in pilot training, women choose men whose intelligence does not intimidate them, or schools are failing third graders. In fact, there's one reason for each of these empirical facts: Statistics. Specifically, a statical concept called Regression to the Mean.
Regression to the mean seeks to explain, with statistics, the role of luck in our day to day lives. An insufficient appreciation of luck and chance can wreak all kinds of mischief in sports, education, medicine, business, politics, and more. It can lead us to see illness when we are not sick and to see cures when treatments are worthless. Perfectly natural random variation can lead us to attach meaning to the meaningless.
Freakonomics showed how economic calculations can explain seemingly counterintuitive decision-making. Thinking, Fast and Slow, helped readers identify a host of small cognitive errors that can lead to miscalculations and irrational thought. In What the Luck?, statistician and author Gary Smith sets himself a similar goal, and explains--in clear, understandable, and witty prose--how a statistical understanding of luck can change the way we see just about every aspect of our lives...and can help us learn to rely less on random chance, and more on truth.
Gary Smith
Gary Smith received his B.S. in Mathematics from Harvey Mudd College and his PhD in Economics from Yale University. He was an Assistant Professor of Economics at Yale University for seven years. He is currently the Fletcher Jones Professor of Economics at Pomona College. He has won two teaching awards and has written (or co-authored) seventy-five academic papers, eight college textbooks, and two trade books (most recently, Standard Deviations: Flawed Assumptions, Tortured Data, and Other Ways to Lie With Statistics, Overlook/Duckworth, 2014). His research has been featured in various media including the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Motley Fool, NewsWeek and BusinessWeek. For more information visit www.garysmithn.com.
More audiobooks from Gary Smith
Standard Deviations: Flawed Assumptions, Tortured Data, and Other Ways to Lie with Statistics Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The AI Delusion Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Distrust: Big Data, Data-Torturing, and the Assault on Science Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsMoney Machine: The Surprisingly Simple Power of Value Investing Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5
Related to What the Luck?
Related audiobooks
The Success Equation: Untangling Skill and Luck in Business, Sports, and Investing Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Success and Luck: Good Fortune and the Myth of Meritocracy Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5The Ostrich Paradox: Why We Underprepare for Disasters Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Radical Uncertainty: Decision-Making Beyond the Numbers Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Improbability Principle: Why Coincidences, Miracles, and Rare Events Happen Every Day Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Future Babble: Why Expert Predictions Fail - and Why We Believe Them Anyway Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Drunkard's Walk: How Randomness Rules Our Lives Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Everyday Chaos: Technology, Complexity, and How We're Thriving in a New World of Possibility Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Maths on the Back of an Envelope: Clever ways to (roughly) calculate anything Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Failure: Why Science Is So Successful Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Upside of Irrationality: The Unexpected Benefits of Defying Logic at Work and at Home Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Lecturing Birds on Flying: Can Mathematical Theories Destroy the Financial Markets Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Who Gets What—And Why: The New Economics of Matchmaking and Market Design Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Half-Life of Facts: Why Everything We Know Has an Expiration Date Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Scienceblind: Why Our Intuitive Theories About the World Are So Often Wrong Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Maxims for Thinking Analytically: The Wisdom of Legendary Harvard Professor Richard Zeckhauser Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Brilliant: The Art and Science of Making Better Decisions Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Fluke: The Math and Myth of Coincidence Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Why?: What Makes Us Curious Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Fooled by the Winners: How Survivor Bias Deceives Us Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Behavioral Economics: The Basics Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Risk Savvy: How to Make Good Decisions Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Mindwise: Why We Misunderstand What Others Think, Believe, Feel, and Want Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Genius Checklist: Nine Paradoxical Tips on How You Can Become a Creative Genius Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5You Are What You Risk: The New Art and Science of Navigating an Uncertain World Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Under the Influence: Putting Peer Pressure to Work Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Models of the Mind: How Physics, Engineering and Mathematics Have Shaped Our Understanding of the Brain Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Enigma of Reason Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Winner's Curse: Paradoxes and Anomalies of Economic Life Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5
Personal Growth For You
The Boy, the Mole, the Fox and the Horse Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Paris: The Memoir Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F*ck: A Counterintuitive Approach to Living a Good Life Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Unfu*k Yourself: Get Out of Your Head and into Your Life Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up: The Japanese Art of Decluttering and Organizing Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The 48 Laws of Power Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Finding Me: A Memoir Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Crucial Conversations: Tools for Talking When Stakes Are High Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Courage to Be Disliked: How to Free Yourself, Change Your Life, and Achieve Real Happiness Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5What Happened to You?: Conversations on Trauma, Resilience, and Healing Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Four Thousand Weeks: Time Management for Mortals Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Highly Sensitive Person Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Becoming Supernatural: How Common People Are Doing The Uncommon Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Think Like a Monk: Train Your Mind for Peace and Purpose Every Day Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Boundaries: When To Say Yes, How to Say No Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Do Hard Things: Why We Get Resilience Wrong and the Surprising Science of Real Toughness Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5It Starts with Self-Compassion: A Practical Road Map Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5You Could Make This Place Beautiful: A Memoir Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5101 Essays That Will Change The Way You Think Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5How to Do the Work: Recognize Your Patterns, Heal from Your Past, and Create Your Self Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Radical Acceptance: Embracing Your Life with the Heart of a Buddha Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Bad Mormon Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/58 Rules of Love: How to Find It, Keep It, and Let It Go Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Breaking the Habit of Being Yourself Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Banish Your Inner Critic: Silence the Voice of Self-Doubt to Unleash Your Creativity and Do Your Best Work Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Grit: The Power of Passion and Perseverance Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5
Reviews for What the Luck?
9 ratings1 review
- Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5The whole book talks about one concept: 'The tendency for regression towards the mean'
And discusses the many different ways it occurs in our lives (so many stats and examples)
So if you like hearing stats and examples then this is the book for you.
I found the book interesting but repetitive.