Fooled by the Winners: How Survivor Bias Deceives Us
Fooled by the Winners will change the way you think about the stock market, health care, global warming, diets, lotteries, restaurants, and your siblings. It will reshape your perspective of the past and give you a clearer view of the future.

Fooled by the Winners is a book about survivor bias, the cognitive error of focusing on the winners, the successes, and the living. But in many instances, we can learn more from those who have lost, failed, or died.

After reading this book, you will understand how survivor bias is often used to deceive us. You will learn how to stop paying for financial services that promise more than they deliver, for health care that doesn’t make us healthier, for diets that don’t make us slimmer, and for advice books that don’t offer good advice. You will also come away with a different view of our past, including our perilous evolutionary journey and how history has often been written by the winners. You will come to understand how we are fooled by the winners in warfare, such as in the deployment of nuclear weapons and the most famous example of survivor bias—the missing Allied bombers of WWII.

Previous studies of survivor bias have been inaccessible to most, housed in formula-laden statistical journals. But you won’t find any math or technical jargon here. David Lockwood, a former member of the faculty of the Graduate School of Business at Stanford University, applies the concept of survivor bias to specific, real-world examples—minus the equations.

Through compelling analysis and the real-life stories, this book demonstrates the deceptive influence of survivor bias in our daily lives and on our thinking.
1139617768
Fooled by the Winners: How Survivor Bias Deceives Us
Fooled by the Winners will change the way you think about the stock market, health care, global warming, diets, lotteries, restaurants, and your siblings. It will reshape your perspective of the past and give you a clearer view of the future.

Fooled by the Winners is a book about survivor bias, the cognitive error of focusing on the winners, the successes, and the living. But in many instances, we can learn more from those who have lost, failed, or died.

After reading this book, you will understand how survivor bias is often used to deceive us. You will learn how to stop paying for financial services that promise more than they deliver, for health care that doesn’t make us healthier, for diets that don’t make us slimmer, and for advice books that don’t offer good advice. You will also come away with a different view of our past, including our perilous evolutionary journey and how history has often been written by the winners. You will come to understand how we are fooled by the winners in warfare, such as in the deployment of nuclear weapons and the most famous example of survivor bias—the missing Allied bombers of WWII.

Previous studies of survivor bias have been inaccessible to most, housed in formula-laden statistical journals. But you won’t find any math or technical jargon here. David Lockwood, a former member of the faculty of the Graduate School of Business at Stanford University, applies the concept of survivor bias to specific, real-world examples—minus the equations.

Through compelling analysis and the real-life stories, this book demonstrates the deceptive influence of survivor bias in our daily lives and on our thinking.
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Fooled by the Winners: How Survivor Bias Deceives Us

Fooled by the Winners: How Survivor Bias Deceives Us

by David Lockwood
Fooled by the Winners: How Survivor Bias Deceives Us

Fooled by the Winners: How Survivor Bias Deceives Us

by David Lockwood

Hardcover

$25.95 
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Overview

Fooled by the Winners will change the way you think about the stock market, health care, global warming, diets, lotteries, restaurants, and your siblings. It will reshape your perspective of the past and give you a clearer view of the future.

Fooled by the Winners is a book about survivor bias, the cognitive error of focusing on the winners, the successes, and the living. But in many instances, we can learn more from those who have lost, failed, or died.

After reading this book, you will understand how survivor bias is often used to deceive us. You will learn how to stop paying for financial services that promise more than they deliver, for health care that doesn’t make us healthier, for diets that don’t make us slimmer, and for advice books that don’t offer good advice. You will also come away with a different view of our past, including our perilous evolutionary journey and how history has often been written by the winners. You will come to understand how we are fooled by the winners in warfare, such as in the deployment of nuclear weapons and the most famous example of survivor bias—the missing Allied bombers of WWII.

Previous studies of survivor bias have been inaccessible to most, housed in formula-laden statistical journals. But you won’t find any math or technical jargon here. David Lockwood, a former member of the faculty of the Graduate School of Business at Stanford University, applies the concept of survivor bias to specific, real-world examples—minus the equations.

Through compelling analysis and the real-life stories, this book demonstrates the deceptive influence of survivor bias in our daily lives and on our thinking.

Product Details

ISBN-13: 9781626348806
Publisher: Greenleaf Book Group Press
Publication date: 11/09/2021
Pages: 296
Product dimensions: 6.00(w) x 9.00(h) x (d)

About the Author

David Lockwood is a former lecturer on the faculty of the Graduate School of Business at Stanford University. He has three decades of experience as a senior executive on Wall Street and in Silicon Valley and has served on more than twenty public and private company boards. In addition, he has been an advisor to the highest levels of the US government. He currently resides in the Western Rockies with his wife and three children.

Table of Contents

Introduction Ships, Sailors, and Prayers 1

Part I

Chapter 1 Financial Services: So Much for So Little 9

Chapter 2 Strategy and Self-Help Books: Bad Advice 25

Chapter 3 Against the Odds: ESP, Lotteries, and Restaurants 39

Chapter 4 Medicine: Unhealthy Confidence 47

Chapter 5 Warfare: Bombers, Helmets, and Tourniquets 67

Chapter 6 History: Winners Hold the Pen 83

Part II

Chapter 7 Evolution: The Last Humans 107

Chapter 8 Nuclear War: Dumb Luck 125

Chapter 9 Climate Change: Hot and Parched 153

Chapter 10 Fermi's Paradox: Where Are They? 179

Chapter 11 Quantum Mechanics: Nobody Understands 197

Epilogue 213

Acknowledgments 217

References 219

Notes 237

Index 261

About the Author 269

What People are Saying About This

From the Publisher

"Fooled by the Winners by David Lockwood is one of the most intriguing, enlightening, and disturbing books I have ever read.” 
— Readers' Favorite

“Engaging, lucid and thought-provoking. Lockwood will prompt you to rethink how you invest, run a company, diet, deal with siblings and tackle social issues.  By the end of the book, you’ll see the world through a different lens.”
— Joel Peterson, Professor of Management, Graduate School of Business at Stanford University, author of Entrepreneurial Leadership anThe 10 Laws of Trust
“A fascinating and entertaining look at one of the most important sources of error in human judgment. I loved it and learned a lot.”
— Gary Smith, Professor of Economics, Pomona College, author of Standard DeviationsWhat the Luck, and The AI Delusion

"Lockwood's clear and brisk style breaks down complex ideas ...readers eager for a better grasp on complex mathematical principles or who enjoy big ideas will find this an accessible explanation of survivor bias and how it can cloud our thinking."
— BookLife by Publishers Weekly

"Fooled by the Winners is a digestible and compelling social science text that uses a bevy of examples to urge people to reexamine the stories they've been told by and about society's winners."
— Foreword Clarion Reviews

"An eye-opening account of an irrational mistake with broad implications…Lockwood sets out to provide an accessible introduction to survivor bias, one shorn of academic jargon and instead reliant on “concrete real-world examples., and in this he roundly succeeds.  Further, he makes a compelling case for the ubiquity of the error, one that has far-reaching consequences, causing both sloppy reasoning and the opportunistic exploitation of individuals and groups.”
— Kirkus Review

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