Taleb has a very important role in a society where it isn’t always easy to tell science from pseudoscience — even at the university level. There is so much dogma passing as “objective truth” in the sciences, and there are so many so-called forecasters who get things wrong over and over again without being held accountable, that a noodge like Taleb can greatly guide us toward a closer understanding of how things work. And “Antifragile’’ does have some useful, original ideas. It’s just that sometimes Taleb seems more interested in being a provocateur than in exercising the rigor he advocates so forcefully.

via Book review: ‘Antifragile: Things That Gain From Disorder’ by Nassim Nicholas Taleb – Arts – The Boston Globe.