anyone read this book? my wife got it from a friend who said it was good. just finished When Genius Failed…awesome read.
great book…malcolm gladwell is an excellant writer…i highly recommend The Tipping Point
C’mon SkipE, use the search function! http://www.analystforum.com/phorums/read.php?1,1025921,1026353#msg-1026353
Couldn’t disagree more, this book is a POS. I mean its entertaining and all to read and Gladwell tells some good stories and all, but ultimately its a book of anecdotal exercises that is short on sound logic and solutions. Wouldn’t waste my time with it again considering I have a list of about 900 other excellent books spanning all genres that I need to read!
wow! Quant! posted earlier this month! what are the chances??? im on my “CFA summer break” so I dont come here nearly as often as during crunch time.
adavydov7 Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > Couldn’t disagree more, this book is a POS. I mean > its entertaining and all to read and Gladwell > tells some good stories and all, but ultimately > its a book of anecdotal exercises that is short on > sound logic and solutions. Wouldn’t waste my time > with it again considering I have a list of about > 900 other excellent books spanning all genres that > I need to read! absolutely agree with this, read the first two chapters and put it aside.
SkipE99 Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > wow! Quant! posted earlier this month! what are > the chances??? im on my “CFA summer break” so I > dont come here nearly as often as during crunch > time. I don’t blame ya! I’m preparing to welcome my new L2 study buddies.
wake2000 Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > adavydov7 Wrote: > -------------------------------------------------- > ----- > > Couldn’t disagree more, this book is a POS. I > mean > > its entertaining and all to read and Gladwell > > tells some good stories and all, but ultimately > > its a book of anecdotal exercises that is short > on > > sound logic and solutions. Wouldn’t waste my > time > > with it again considering I have a list of > about > > 900 other excellent books spanning all genres > that > > I need to read! > > > absolutely agree with this, read the first two > chapters and put it aside. The part i disagree with is “short on sound logic and solutions”…what does this mean? the book is full of evidence to back up his ideas…mostly facts actually, on top of this, he is a critically acclaimed writer…i suggest re reading the book and looking for the logic…it’s literally everywhere
rjs157 Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > wake2000 Wrote: > -------------------------------------------------- > ----- > > adavydov7 Wrote: > > > -------------------------------------------------- > > > ----- > > > Couldn’t disagree more, this book is a POS. I > > mean > > > its entertaining and all to read and Gladwell > > > tells some good stories and all, but > ultimately > > > its a book of anecdotal exercises that is > short > > on > > > sound logic and solutions. Wouldn’t waste my > > time > > > with it again considering I have a list of > > about > > > 900 other excellent books spanning all genres > > that > > > I need to read! > > > > > > absolutely agree with this, read the first two > > chapters and put it aside. > > > The part i disagree with is “short on sound logic > and solutions”…what does this mean? the book is > full of evidence to back up his ideas…mostly > facts actually, on top of this, he is a critically > acclaimed writer…i suggest re reading the book > and looking for the logic…it’s literally > everywhere Lol clearly you have never had a class in logic. All of the arguments the author makes are inductive (he uses examples that he cherry picked to demonstrate his points; certainly you don’t think he would include any of the millions of examples out there that didn’t demonstrate his point as it would render his book pointless) and yet he uses them to draw very broad and general conclusions about society. You cannot do this, this is not “sound logic.” He is critically acclaimed because his readers are gullible, and like you, have likely had zero to no exposure to argument construction. He writes in the same vein as Levitt, its a fun read for the stories he presents but worthless as anything more (and this “anything more” is what he clearly was intending this book to be, hence making it a failure in my eyes). I’m not trying to rag on you, but most people have never taken any classes from the Phil/Math dept and are hence unacquainted with proof/argument construction, check out the following if you are interested: http://www.amazon.com/Math-Proofs-Demystified-Stan-Gibilisco/dp/0071445765 http://www.amazon.com/How-Read-Proofs-Introduction-Mathematical/dp/0471680583/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1248447259&sr=1-1 http://www.amazon.com/Schaums-Outline-Logic-John-Nolt/dp/0070466491/ref=sr_1_10?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1248447002&sr=8-10 Check them out, two are really easy reads with some fun examples of proofs such as why 1=.9999999999999999…(yes that is a hard equals sign as in 1 is exactly equal to .9 repeating) etc.
I agree with the uselessness of this book to those who understand statistics fairly well but do agree that it is a good introduction to understanding how to examine a system with little quantitative methodology. I read a few chapters and stopped, deciding to read books more relevant to the recent market crash, which there are several good ones out there, specifically Fools Gold by Jillian Tett. A good story read, light on the math, but then again for anyone who has taken econ, reading a story or narrative by an econ/quant prof is just plame torture. Trying to read Animal Spirits by Akerlof and Schiller, fighting through that one too. David Faber is a good author/journalist surrounded by morons on CNBC. One of the PHD students in my program at UCSB Kelly Bedard was mentioned in the first study.
How did she get a chair with one A publication (8 years ago!!)? Oh yea that’s right she is a non-Asian female in an Econ dept! Fing hate this double standard, although I do use it any time I hear a woman start BITCHING about inequality and what not.
I dont know but that dept was very political. My favorite professor was being published constantly with papers from behavioral econ and exp. econ research and he was worried about getting tenure because the top profs were old school free market mathematics guys. Best insult from an econ geek, my professor insulted me by telling me that he thought i would be better off in business school after an econometrics project. Total d***.
I did not care for this book at all. I enjoyed “The Tipping Point” about 4 years ago, but this one just didn’t do it for me. I’m just now starting “Against he Gods” based on recommendations and reviews from other’s. Anybody read this one?
@BizBanker: lol yea most econ profs are douches with inferiority complexes to their business school counterparts (a lot of animosity in my experience). Behavioral econ is BS, it doesn’t get published in any A journals so those pubs are easy to comeby and worth nothing on the job market, basically what I am saying is your prof was right to worry!
He actually started getting published in Econometrica and is now a full professor. His experiments we real simple but did take into account alot of overlooked occurences in 2 player bargaining, namely revenge and fairness in single and repeated games. I think there is going to be alot of research done on the quant vs. behavioral theory in the next ten years given the lessons from LTCM and CDS from JP Morgan. That whole back story is so interesting, i liken trading CDS to buying a life insurance policy on your drunken neighbor hoping that he gets into a crash, or even taking him out for drinks to induce that outcome.