Articles about the Scientific, Technical & Medical

Not quite the gripping read that the reviews had me believing it would be. I was expecting some tantalising narrative, imaginative characterisation and a poignant denouement - instead I got a load of electrical charts. Is this postmodernism gone mad?

Reading these reviews leads me immediately to the realisation that this work may possibly be little better than plagiarism. Siméon-Denis Poisson first examined the statistical modelling of low-probability events in 1838, within a much wider corpus of scientific research in pure and applied natural and social sciences. One immediate conclusion is that the probability of low-odds events occurring (where there is no impedement to frequent possible events) is much higher than normal binomial probability suggests. As this is the heart of Taleb's thesis, he's at best reinvented the wheel.
On the basis of his introduction, examining the work of Umberto Eco, I suspect he falls into a trap of his own pretentiousness, insofar as Professor Eco sometimes espouses hermetic doctrines in his fictional works established long before our days by the Vatican and other similar bodies. His is not the work of a freelance research student, but of an acolyte, affirmed by his other publications of a non-fictional character, displaying the formation of his mentation. It is not therefore appropriate to suggest that there is much of a serendipitous nature about his well-researched, yet doctrinally conformist, theses, and that disables Taleb's first shuffle.
I therefore conclude that as both foundations to his thesis, namely his starting point and the incremental progression thenceforward, appear to be weak, this may not arrive at any logically coherent conclusions at all. Those of a religious disposition might choose to develop that objection further, insofar as the inexplicable Poisson anomaly has sometimes been argued as a scientifically-rigourous case for a non-bounded ontological eidos (or in plain language, "there are more things in heaven and earth, Nicholas, than are dreamt of in your philosophy."), but each to his own: at the very least, he is not doing fresh research by a very long way, as this was very old hat in our market modelling in the 1980s.

Brought this for alot more than for sale here, from high street store. Grrrr! Anyway got to say Bruce is a legend and its a perfect crimbo present!

I am about to order this. After reading the reviews I can't wait to get my hands on this and read it cover to cover to get all 17th,ed and ready for my next NICEIC inspection. It will be great, more regs, more questions, more trying to explain to customers. I may opt (have to) to go on a course aswell which is excellent as I was wondering where to go on holiday this year. Roll on the ammendments. There may even be a prequel and some retro bonding moments to come.

this book admittedly is not laid out in an obviously systematic way but i m not sure that matters. it got me interested in some things that i thought were rather boring, and on the whole though i haven t read it all through yet it does seem to the makings of a very good read, though inevitably some of the puzzles will be very familiar.

the version that i have has an incorrect printing of the 3x3 "nearly magic" square on p66, the first of the two examples. the fix is fairly easy though and provides a nice additional problem for anyone interested!

On the one hand, I didn't really discover anything new by reading this book. Unless this book is literally your first step to getting better, you will probably, on some level, already know everything that's within its pages. But lots of information by itself can be overwhelming and so it's easy to be discouraged about facing up to it. On the other hand, where this book is useful is in breaking down and tackling piece by piece your dysfunctional thinking.

I do also like the IDEA that this book gives you exercises to do so that you are no longer passive in your troubles, but you are active in getting to grips with them. In theory that's good, but in practice I have to admit to skipping over many of them. It's easy to persuade yourself that YOU don't need to do them because you can imagine what they're supposed to teach and you've learned that lesson already -- from another book, your therapist or just because it's so obvious anyway.

These exercises mostly involve filling in tables (like the Thought Record), lists and questionnaires. I particularly liked the Thought Record (which is the central idea and tool of the whole book) and I think I can see myself filling out many of these worksheets as the months go by even if I am not confident that they will produce any lasting benefit. However, doing many of these exercises in this book you do feel a little bit like a baby being spoon-fed. But then again you do probably secretly enjoy it too.

Lastly, it is comforting to be reminded that you are not alone in having psychological problems. So I liked the four or five case histories that the reader follows through the book and through the exercises. You could easily empathise with these people and I saw a little bit of myself in many of their thoughts and their experiences. And I'm also glad that in the epilogue we learn that they all got significantly better. But then again the authors would hardly have picked unresponsive cases to highlight.

The author writes about living things as if the gene is the animal and the animal is simply a seed for the gene. He basically turns life inside out. It's a powerful mind tool to get a different perspective on life but don't get too carried away with the idea. The whole theory of evolution is valuable in understanding the world but like a lot of science it starts to become too difficult to use. So in conclusion I don't believe that the author has discovered the secret of life, he just has another way of looking at things that you may find useful. It should be one of the books you have read.

Sue Gerhardt's style of argument can be summed up as follows. Some of the people with problem A also have B. One possible explanation for B is C. C might be linked to experiences in early years. Therefore problem A is caused by not being loved enough as a baby. This is used to explain every problem from asthma to unemployment.

Starting with the simple and uncontroversial point that babies who are cared for tend to do better than babies who are not, Sue Gerhardt's obsession with her view of how mothers should behave towards babies distorts everything from then on. She only quotes bits of scientific studies that she can use to support her ideas, ignoring contradictory evidence even if it is in the same studies she quotes. She hardly ever considers any alternative explanation than her own and even on the rare occasions she does raise a doubt, she dismisses it simply because it doesn't fit with her view of the world.

Some scientific studies quoted in the book have only the most tenuous connection to the paragraphs preceding them and seem only to have been included to pad out the references page and create the impression that this book has some basis in science. Her `case studies' sound more like excerpts from trashy novels than scientific studies. I think Sue Gerhardt's approach to proper research is typified by the fact that she feels qualified to make judgements about the families of the killers of James Bulger based on what she had read in the newspapers.

Most people I know who have started this book haven't even been able to finish it because they have been so appalled by the sweeping generalisations, stereotyped views and idiotic conclusions. If you want to read a book about child rearing, read one based on evidence rather than this collection of opinions written by a women who doesn't even appear to understand the science she is quoting.

The book offers a better perception of randomness and its effect on our lives mostly using stock market examples. Easy to read for the non-expert in probability or statistics it offers a stochastic view on the world which we perceive to be much more deterministic than it is (mostly by confusing the effect with the results).
Although an engineer myself and not totally unaware of statistics or probability, I considered the representation of philosophical ideas through the prism of the book to be enjoyable and worth mentioning. I also found the supporting bibliographic references to be impressive for a book of this subject.
I can see why some of the people gave an unfavorable review to the book mostly with regard of his writing style (although it didn't bother me) but claims backed up with so many references can be easily confirmed if one needs to do so and can be judged for the essence of the meaning rather than the presentation which is of course important but subjective.

Read this book in 3 days and quit just like it said on the tin, been 3 weeks now and I already know i'll never smoke another cigarette in my life, and that feels amazing to say. Just like to also say that you MUST have an open positive mind to read this book, believe all that you are going to be told because 99% is true! If you start to disagree (you ARE kidding yourself) or have the opinion or feeling of "this won't work for me", "i'm too CLEVER for this to work on me", or "i knew all this already" (which I promise you don't, you may know some of it but not ALL of it, esp the STRESS/RELAXATION/BOREDOM part, because if you did you wouldn't smoke :0) like reading the 1 star givers posts seemed to have, then this won't work. However, if like me, you desparately want to stop then just give in to the book. Its not hypnotic like some 1 star givers have suggested, its just cold hard facts (a lot of which you will NOT know), and the reason for the repetition is that it is EASY WAY for the brain to store information (reasons for not smoking information in this case). Call it brainwashing if you want, but if it stops you from smoking then surely it HAS to be Positive Brainwashing if ever such thing exists. Allen Carr has made a lot of money from this, but hell he deserves it, he may have prolonged more lives than any top surgeon could ever wish for. READ IT, GIVE IN TO IT, DON'T GIVE UP, STOP.