In all aspects of our lives, we base our decisions on what we think probably will happen. And, in turn, we base that to a great extent on what usually happened in the past. We expect results to be close to the norm (A) most of the time, but we know it’s not unusual to see outcomes that are better (B) or worse (C). Although we should bear in mind that, once in a while, a result will be outside the usual range (D), we tend to forget about the potential for outliers. And importantly, as illustrated by recent events, we rarely consider outcomes that have happened only once a century . . . or never
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