There are a lot of posts complaining about Taleb's tone. I find it refreshing. Too often are statistics and stupid measurements applied to give a veneer of quan

There are a lot of posts complaining about Taleb's tone. I find it refreshing. Too often are statistics and stupid measurements applied to give a veneer of quantitative rigor to stupid ideas or ineffective systems. If a manager ranked you based on a statistic of your lines of code produced per day, you would rightly be derisive. It turns out that such stupid quantification infects a great deal of society, especially the sciences. There are many examples of statistical phenomena that starkly illustrate how subtle and counterintuitive probability can be: by no means a transparent and straightforward subject. Think of Monty Hall or Simpson's paradox. Taleb is just pointing out more sophisticated traps of probability that plague amateurs, and most of us who apply statistics are amateurs. Why is he so mad? He hates it when stupid ideas are granted importance because of nonsense statistics, especially when they have consequences for people and society as a whole. I hope Taleb never stops being mad.