Fooled by the Winners: How Survivor Bias Deceives Us

Summary

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. 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.