As much as Taleb's attitude and lack of manners are annoying, he does have a point and the article quoted by Pinker fails to get it. For instance: "To a norma

As much as Taleb's attitude and lack of manners are annoying, he does have a point and the article quoted by Pinker fails to get it. For instance: "To a normal person, the statement ‘terrorism kills far fewer people than falls from ladders’ means a purely factual statement about the number of casualties over a specified period in the past. " No, it really doesn't. The whole point of these statements is to hint at latent properties, not merely to report historical records.