Customer Reviews

Chance Rules

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In the better half of the dozen or so popular science style books on probability that I have read and reviewed. The selection of topics (listed below) is very traditional and the author has chosen to cover many topics briefly rather than a few topics in depth; in other regards it has a middle of the road style. That is, in the middle of spectra (a) from gee-whiz enthusiasm to dry analysis; (b) from absolutely no mathematics to too much mathematics. What it says is almost everywhere clear and correct, though the book as a whole lacks individualistic style or focus. Indeed the only unique feature I noticed is that it mentions neither the normal curve nor power law distributions -- other books tend to overemphasize at least one of those topics. Like other books by academics (the most similar previous one being Struck by Lightning: The Curious World of Probabilities) it implicitly focuses on topics related to traditional College freshman statistics courses rather than those arising from fashionable research (random models of social networks or the Internet, genetic algorithms, fractals ...) which tend to be emphasized in books written by professional science writers.

List of topics: brief history, rules for combining probabilities, combinations and permutations, the gambler's fallacy, waiting times for patterns in coin tossing, games (lottery, roulette, poker, blackjack) and sports (horse racing, football pools), Bayes rule illustrated by positive/negative medical diagnostics and by the O.J. Simpson and Sally Clark cases, paradoxes (2 boys, Monte Hall, surprise exam, St Petersburg), secretary problem, birthday coincidences and anecdotes about real-world coincidences, risk perception and influence of positive/negative presentation of risk/reward, randomization in clinical trials, and evidence regarding acupuncture and homeopathy, modeling illustrated by improving sports records and stock markets, and brief final mentions of chaos, quantum theory and random mutations as the driving force behind evolution.

The author had done a great job to make such a complicated subject so interesting and easily digestable by mass audience. Honestly, I dont understand all the topics but at least it builds into my mind that chance rules and my first impression about probability of an issue is almost always wrong. In short, recommended!

p.s. Below please find a few favorite passages of mine for your reference.
There are two times in a man's life when he should not speculate: when he cant afford it, and when he can - Mark Twain pg47
Probability that all r birthdays are different: 2-0.997, 20-0.589, 100-0.00000031 pg79
Probability of at least one birthday the same as yours: 1-0.003, 100-0.24, 253-0.500 pg80
The luck of having talent is not enough; one must also have a talent for luck. - Hector Berlioz pg87
A neighbor has two children. One is a boy. What is the probability of the other child is also a boy? 1/3 pg106
In any evaluation of risk it has to be remembered that life itself is a universally fatal sexually transmitted disease and that in the end nobody cheats death. A strong case can be made for living a life of modified hedonism so that we may enjoy to the full the only life which we are likely to have. Pg134
The stock market has forecast nine of the last five recessions. - Paul Samuelson pg169