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What the Luck?: The Surprising Role of Chance in Our Everyday Lives Audiobook, by Gary Smith Play Audiobook Sample

What the Luck?: The Surprising Role of Chance in Our Everyday Lives Audiobook

What the Luck?: The Surprising Role of Chance in Our Everyday Lives Audiobook, by Gary Smith Play Audiobook Sample
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Read By: Timothy Andrés Pabon Publisher: Ascent Audio Listen Time: at 1.0x Speed 5.17 hours at 1.5x Speed 3.88 hours at 2.0x Speed Release Date: October 2016 Format: Unabridged Audiobook ISBN: 9781469065601

Quick Stats About this Audiobook

Total Audiobook Chapters:

22

Longest Chapter Length:

50:56 minutes

Shortest Chapter Length:

35 seconds

Average Chapter Length:

21:21 minutes

Audiobooks by this Author:

5

Other Audiobooks Written by Gary Smith: > View All...

Publisher Description

The newest book by the acclaimed author of Standard Deviations takes on luck, and all the mischief the idea of luck can cause in our lives. In Israel, pilot trainees who were praised for doing well subsequently performed worse, while trainees who were yelled at for doing poorly performed better. It is an empirical fact that highly intelligent women tend to marry men who are less intelligent. Students who get the highest scores in third grade generally get lower scores in fourth grade. And yet, it's wrong to conclude that screaming is not more effective in pilot training, women choose men whose intelligence does not intimidate them, or schools are failing third graders. In fact, there's one reason for each of these empirical facts: Statistics. Specifically, a statical concept called Regression to the Mean. Regression to the mean seeks to explain, with statistics, the role of luck in our day to day lives. An insufficient appreciation of luck and chance can wreak all kinds of mischief in sports, education, medicine, business, politics, and more. It can lead us to see illness when we are not sick and to see cures when treatments are worthless. Perfectly natural random variation can lead us to attach meaning to the meaningless. Freakonomics showed how economic calculations can explain seemingly counterintuitive decision-making. Thinking, Fast and Slow, helped readers identify a host of small cognitive errors that can lead to miscalculations and irrational thought. In What the Luck?, statistician and author Gary Smith sets himself a similar goal, and explains--in clear, understandable, and witty prose--how a statistical understanding of luck can change the way we see just about every aspect of our lives...and can help us learn to rely less on random chance, and more on truth.

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About Gary Smith

Gary Smith is the Fletcher Jones Professor of Economics at Pomona College in Claremont, California. He received his doctorate in economics from Yale University and taught there as assistant professor for seven years. Smith has won two teaching awards and has authored more than seventy academic papers, nine textbooks, and seven educational software programs.

About Timothy Andrés Pabon

Timothy Andrés Pabon is an English- and Spanish-speaking voice-over artist who has worked extensively in advertising and audiobook narration. He has had acting roles on House of Cards and has also been a costar on HBO’s acclaimed series The Wire opposite country music legend Steve Earl. As a stage actor, he has worked off-Broadway at the June Havoc Theatre, and his regional credits include Center Stage, the Shakespeare Theatre, Arena Stage, the Hippodrome, Olney Theatre, Rep Stage, and GALA Hispanic Theatre.