Further Reading: Precision Without Accuracy

Essential

Taleb, N. N. (2007). The Black Swan. Random House. The most influential critique of false precision in risk modeling. Taleb's analysis of fat tails, model risk, and the illusion of quantitative knowledge is directly relevant. (Tier 1)

Silver, N. (2012). The Signal and the Noise: Why So Many Predictions Fail — But Some Don't. Penguin. A practitioner's account of prediction across fields (weather, elections, baseball, earthquakes). Silver consistently emphasizes the importance of communicating uncertainty alongside predictions. (Tier 1)

Finance and Risk

Mandelbrot, B. & Hudson, R. L. (2004). The (Mis)Behavior of Markets. Basic Books. Mandelbrot documented fat tails in financial data in the 1960s. This book, written for a general audience, explains why normal distribution models produce false precision in financial risk assessment. (Tier 1)

Measurement and Uncertainty

Research on uncertainty communication has been conducted by multiple groups, including Spiegelhalter's work on communicating statistical evidence to the public and Gigerenzer's work on "risk literacy." (Tier 2)

Hubbard, D. W. (2010). How to Measure Anything. Wiley. Argues that many supposedly "unmeasurable" quantities can be estimated with useful accuracy — but emphasizes that the estimates must include uncertainty. (Tier 1)

IQ and Measurement

Gould, S. J. (1981). The Mismeasure of Man. W. W. Norton. A classic critique of the reification of IQ — treating a statistical construct as a concrete, precisely measurable quantity. Directly relevant to the false precision problem. (Tier 1)

Polling and Political Prediction

Research on polling methodology and its limitations has been documented by the American Association for Public Opinion Research (AAPOR), including post-election analyses of the 2016 and 2020 polling errors. (Tier 2)

For Instructors

The archery analogy is an excellent classroom demonstration. Draw four targets, have students identify which archer is most dangerous, then map the analogy to real-world examples. The VaR → Lehman comparison is particularly effective for business and finance students.