| | |  | Rings | Home » » » The Drunkard's Walk: How Randomness Rules Our Lives | | | | | | | Description: | | In this irreverent and illuminating book, acclaimed writer and scientist Leonard Mlodinow shows us how randomness, change, and probability reveal a tremendous amount about our daily lives, and how we misunderstand the significance of everything from a casual conversation to a major financial setback. As a result, successes and failures in life are often attributed to clear and obvious cases, when in actuality they are more profoundly influenced by chance.
The rise and fall of your favorite movie star of the most reviled CEO--in fact, of all our destinies--reflects as much as planning and innate abilities. Even the legendary Roger Maris, who beat Babe Ruth's single-season home run record, was in all likelihood not great but just lucky. And it might be shocking to realize that you are twice as likely to be killed in a car accident on your way to buying a lottery ticket than you are to win the lottery.
How could it have happened that a wine was given five out of five stars, the highest rating, in one journal and in another it was called the worst wine of the decade? Mlodinow vividly demonstrates how wine ratings, school grades, political polls, and many other things in daily life are less reliable than we believe. By showing us the true nature of change and revealing the psychological illusions that cause us to misjudge the world around us, Mlodinow gives fresh insight into what is really meaningful and how we can make decisions based on a deeper truth. From the classroom to the courtroom, from financial markets to supermarkets, from the doctor's office to the Oval Office, Mlodinow's insights will intrigue, awe, and inspire.
Offering readers not only a tour of randomness, chance, and probability but also a new way of looking at the world, this original, unexpected journey reminds us that much in our lives is about as predictable as the steps of a stumbling man fresh from a night at the bar. | | | Features: | |
• ISBN13: 9780375424045
• Condition: NEW
• Notes: Brand New from Publisher. No Remainder Mark.
| | | Product Details: | | | Author:
| Leonard Mlodinow | | Hardcover:
| 272 pages | | Publisher:
| Pantheon | | Publication Date:
| May 13, 2008 | | Language:
| English | | ISBN:
| 0375424040 | | Package Length:
| 9.2 inches | | Package Width:
| 6.4 inches | | Package Height:
| 0.9 inches | | Package Weight:
| 1.2 pounds | | Average Customer Rating:
|  based on 138 reviews |
| | | | Customer Reviews: | |
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 Fascinating insights.Mar 09, 2010
Wonderful review of the concepts. Loved the story used to illustrate reversion to the mean and how we misinterpret data.
Entertaining and EducationalMar 02, 2010
This book provides an enterntaining and educational account of the history of probability and statistics. Filled with anecdotes and explanations, it is a fun read.
outstanding...Feb 22, 2010
blown away by this book...but, do we cause randomness? i usually read spiritual books so, i have to see the connection of all things...check out Live Like A Fruit Fly - also on amazon
Great examples!Feb 16, 2010
I teach psychology courses at a university and use several examples from this book to illustrate differences between how the brain/computers determine things. I've also cited this book in an article I've published. It's a fascinating read that is accessible to a wide variety of audiences, but doesn't dumb things down to the point that they lose their meaning. Highly recommended!
1 of 1 found the following review helpful:
How to see that "cruel fate" is an oxymoronFeb 03, 2010
Humans are so skilled at pattern-seeking, and so taken with the notion of actively-managed destinies, that they regularly (and sometimes tragically) mistake routine coincidental events for fragments of some cosmic strategist's grand plan. Countless people could significantly sharpen their understanding of the world and its workings if only they would pay attention to Prof. Mlodinow and other educators striving to explain and clarify the immense influence of chance events on our daily lives. Among the general public, a pervasive lack of appreciation for the importance of randomness often shows up in casual pronouncements such as "There are no coincidences." It is hard to imagine a less true claim.
Mlodinow guides the reader through ten chapters forming an entertaining introduction to probability and statistics, with many interesting sidelights. One such is an explanation of Benford's law, which has helped catch criminals trying to fake random number sequences in illegal lotteries. In fact, says the author, some of the characteristics of random series are so counterintuitive that people may imagine they detect a bias. A similar effect once caused Apple Computer to make its iPod shuffle sequences less random in order to seem more random.
Having given the reader a useful store of background knowledge in the first nine chapters, the author introduces the kernel of the book's conclusions in chapter 10, which carries the book's main title ("The Drunkard's Walk"). Mlodinow's core theme is that the modern echoes of Laplace's determinist view of the world, embodied in the notion of a personal destiny for each human being, are, on balance, harmful to clear and critical thinking. Our pattern-prone minds are endlessly creative at linking events and experiences into a seemingly coherent version of what some invisible intelligence has in store for us, or has used to influence the fate of others. But the author provides many examples showing that even the most "obvious" causal chains were far more randomly influenced than they appeared to be in the seductively misleading light of 20-20 hindsight.
Although it may sound cynical and discouraging at first, the view promoted in this book is actually healthier and ultimately more optimistic than reliance on a mysterious, intelligently- guided "destiny" which needlessly causes us to agonize over the imagined motives of a nonexistent grand supervisor. Just as Darwin found a certain grandeur in the immensely long trial-and-error saga of evolution, we can take comfort in the recognition that we all face the same spectrum of strictly impersonal odds in the daily lottery of life.
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