The Black Swan: The Impact of the Highly Improbable (Incerto, #2)

by Nassim Nicholas Taleb

your children for a picnic on a doubtful day, they will demand a dogmatic answer as to whether it will be fine or wet, and be disappointed in you when you cannot be sure. … But so long as men are not trained [emphasis mine] to withhold judgment in the absence of evidence, they will be led astray by cocksure prophets … For the learning of every virtue there is an appropriate discipline, and for the learning of suspended judgment the best discipline is philosophy. The reader may be surprised that I disagree. It is hard to disagree that the demand for certainty is an intellectual vice. It is hard to disagree that we can be led astray by some cocksure prophet. Where I beg to differ with the great man is that I do not believe in the track record of advice-giving “philosophy” in helping us deal with the problem; nor do I believe that virtues can be easily taught; nor do I urge people to strain in order to avoid making a judgment. Why? Because we have to deal with humans as humans. We cannot teach people to withhold judgment; judgments are embedded in the way we view objects. I do not see a “tree;” I see a pleasant or an ugly tree. It is not possible