What do you think?
Rate this book
What the Luck?: The Surprising Role of Chance in our Everyday Lives
Fact:
In Israel, pilot trainees who were praised for doing well subsequently performed worse, while trainees who were shouted at for doing poorly performed better.
Highly intelligent women tend to marry men who are less intelligent.
Students who get the highest scores in third grade generally get lower scores in fourth grade.
Truth:
It’s wrong to conclude that shouting is a more effective tool.
It’s wrong to conclude that women choose men whose intelligence does not intimidate them.
It’s wrong to conclude that schools are failing their students.
There’s one reason for each of these truths: a concept called regression to the mean. It explains how we can be misled by luck in our day-to-day lives. An insufficient appreciation of luck and chance can wreak all kinds of mischief in sports, education, medicine, business, politics, and more. Perfectly natural random variation can lead us to attach meaning to the meaningless and in What the Luck?, statistician Gary Smith explains how an understanding of luck can change the way we see just about every aspect of our lives . . . and can help us learn to rely less on random chance, and more on truth.
In Israel, pilot trainees who were praised for doing well subsequently performed worse, while trainees who were shouted at for doing poorly performed better.
Highly intelligent women tend to marry men who are less intelligent.
Students who get the highest scores in third grade generally get lower scores in fourth grade.
Truth:
It’s wrong to conclude that shouting is a more effective tool.
It’s wrong to conclude that women choose men whose intelligence does not intimidate them.
It’s wrong to conclude that schools are failing their students.
There’s one reason for each of these truths: a concept called regression to the mean. It explains how we can be misled by luck in our day-to-day lives. An insufficient appreciation of luck and chance can wreak all kinds of mischief in sports, education, medicine, business, politics, and more. Perfectly natural random variation can lead us to attach meaning to the meaningless and in What the Luck?, statistician Gary Smith explains how an understanding of luck can change the way we see just about every aspect of our lives . . . and can help us learn to rely less on random chance, and more on truth.
304 pages, Paperback
First published October 4, 2016
24 people are currently reading
232 people want to read
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 30 of 43 reviews
January 6, 2018
To a statistician with a hammer, every problem looks like a regression to the mean.
I stopped reading ~40% in, this isn't going to get better.
I stopped reading ~40% in, this isn't going to get better.
August 6, 2018
[A 2.51 sort of 3 star book]
What I suspect might have been an interesting chapter or two in a book about probability theory is unfortunately dragged out to make a 250 page book of its own. Maybe it would have been more interesting to someone who a) had sufficient knowledge of American sports to understand what he was on about when talking about the various positions in baseball and American Football (is it just me or are they all unnecessarily elaborate and convoluted in their rules) and b) less prior familiarity with the concept of regression to the mean.
The basic notion - that people who do outstandingly well or badly at anything probably had an element of luck on their side (or against them) and will probably likely not do as well (or as badly) next time is really quite simple - and I could usually anticipate the conclusion of each of the author's little stories from fairly early on.
That said, the book did get me thinking about whether the whole notion of sports-people, in particular, being on good form, or on a winning streak is greatly overplayed - no more than a desire to impose a narrative on what are no more than chance variations. The laws of probability dicate that wherever there is an element of luck in play, players and teams will have winning and losing streaks in much the same way that if you toss enough coins enough times, you'll get a run of 6 heads from time to time.
The other point of interest to me was around how it might be possible to use all this to beat the odds in sports betting: that players or teams with a run of defeats to their name - particularly when it is worse than their long-term average results, are more likely than not better that those results suggest, and that you'll tend to get more generous odds on them than on teams on a winning streak.
The other chapters worth reading (if you want to save time, skip the repetitive stuff and care little about batting averages in baseball) were around the application of regression to the mean in medicine, although I'm not sure that there was much in here that you won't find in Ben Goldacre's Bad Medicine .
What I suspect might have been an interesting chapter or two in a book about probability theory is unfortunately dragged out to make a 250 page book of its own. Maybe it would have been more interesting to someone who a) had sufficient knowledge of American sports to understand what he was on about when talking about the various positions in baseball and American Football (is it just me or are they all unnecessarily elaborate and convoluted in their rules) and b) less prior familiarity with the concept of regression to the mean.
The basic notion - that people who do outstandingly well or badly at anything probably had an element of luck on their side (or against them) and will probably likely not do as well (or as badly) next time is really quite simple - and I could usually anticipate the conclusion of each of the author's little stories from fairly early on.
That said, the book did get me thinking about whether the whole notion of sports-people, in particular, being on good form, or on a winning streak is greatly overplayed - no more than a desire to impose a narrative on what are no more than chance variations. The laws of probability dicate that wherever there is an element of luck in play, players and teams will have winning and losing streaks in much the same way that if you toss enough coins enough times, you'll get a run of 6 heads from time to time.
The other point of interest to me was around how it might be possible to use all this to beat the odds in sports betting: that players or teams with a run of defeats to their name - particularly when it is worse than their long-term average results, are more likely than not better that those results suggest, and that you'll tend to get more generous odds on them than on teams on a winning streak.
The other chapters worth reading (if you want to save time, skip the repetitive stuff and care little about batting averages in baseball) were around the application of regression to the mean in medicine, although I'm not sure that there was much in here that you won't find in Ben Goldacre's Bad Medicine .
October 2, 2018
Some books inform, some entertain, a few do both. This book manages neither to inform nor entertain. It is a deathly dull parade of statistics most of which relate to American sports, all used to hammer one single point: that statistics of all sorts regress to the mean. That's it. That's what the author takes hundreds of pages to determine. If you read only the first chapter you've pretty much read the whole book. At no point are you enlightened as to what 'luck' is, only that (Duh!) it plays a large role in life.
February 17, 2018
This book examines how chance / random events alter performance.
I thought this book was quite interesting, but overall it just seem to say that things are never as good or as bad as they seem and that random events can (at the margins) determine what result is achieved.
I thought this book was quite interesting, but overall it just seem to say that things are never as good or as bad as they seem and that random events can (at the margins) determine what result is achieved.
October 31, 2023
A thought-provoking exploration of the intricate interplay between luck and our daily experiences. Smith's compelling examples make complex statistical concepts accessible to readers of all backgrounds. Smith challenges conventional wisdom by shedding light on the extent to which randomness and luck influence our lives. Drawing on a wide range of real-life scenarios, from sports and finance to medicine and entertainment, he deftly dismantles common misconceptions and highlights the absolute role chance plays in shaping outcomes. Smith is a master at simplifying statistical concepts and using relatable anecdotes to reinforce his arguments, and will come away with a deeper understanding of probabilistic thinking and a newfound appreciation for the complexity of luck in our world. Finally, Smith challenges us to question our assumptions, make more informed choices, and embrace the uncertainty that surrounds us.
October 22, 2024
“The more extreme the luck the less likely it is to be repeated”
I expected this book to explain in depth about the factor of luck. However this was mostly a compilation of examples of good luck and bad luck with an answer to why it happens “Regression to the mean”. I’d have loved to read more about how regression to the mean occurs rather than where it occurred. But it was a nice read and it helped me to not fall for the illusion of luck and to think of it in a way where no matter which end of the luck you receive, it will always regress to the mean.
I expected this book to explain in depth about the factor of luck. However this was mostly a compilation of examples of good luck and bad luck with an answer to why it happens “Regression to the mean”. I’d have loved to read more about how regression to the mean occurs rather than where it occurred. But it was a nice read and it helped me to not fall for the illusion of luck and to think of it in a way where no matter which end of the luck you receive, it will always regress to the mean.
June 23, 2019
Regression toward mean is everywhere, including this author's books :D
October 19, 2016
Pick any one chapter from the book and read it, it is as good as reading the whole book. The author keeps yammering page after page about Regression to the mean and quoting various anecdotes to support his theory. It looked interesting in the beginning, but since it doesn't talk about anything else, it became boring after sometime. It feels as if author fell in the same trap he was talking about data mining, torture the data sufficiently enough to make it look the way you want. This book really regressed below the mean after piquing my interest in the beginning.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
December 16, 2016
The author statistically proves regression to the mean. It gets somewhat repetitious, but makes it's points that luck plays into all endeavors, such as sports, the stock market, gambling etc.
August 28, 2019
Do we really need so many pages to cover a single concept, albeit an important one, of regression to the mean?
June 13, 2019
I picked this up because I'd enjoyed reading Standard Deviations: Flawed Assumptions, Tortured Data, and Other Ways to Lie with Statistics by the same author last year. This one was lighter all round; more accessible probably but also focused on just one concept really.
It's a couple of hundred pages of exploration of regression to the mean. An example he uses is when you praise one group of students for doing well, and shout at a group who do badly. When you come back the next day the praised group generally do worse, and the shouted at group do better. Does this mean that shouting is a more effective tool than praise? No, it's just that generally people who turn in performances far from the average are really more average than their performance showed. If they do really well they will do worse next time whatever, and the poor performers will probably improve anyway. (Side note: so just be nice to everyone ok? Not mathematical insight, just human.)
Like his other book this was a bit heavy on the examples from American sports for me, but there were plenty of other topics covered. I didn't need convincing of the theory behind regression to the mean but I enjoyed the read anyway and the surprisingly takeaway for me was how uplifting the idea that "it's more average than you think" could be.
It's a couple of hundred pages of exploration of regression to the mean. An example he uses is when you praise one group of students for doing well, and shout at a group who do badly. When you come back the next day the praised group generally do worse, and the shouted at group do better. Does this mean that shouting is a more effective tool than praise? No, it's just that generally people who turn in performances far from the average are really more average than their performance showed. If they do really well they will do worse next time whatever, and the poor performers will probably improve anyway. (Side note: so just be nice to everyone ok? Not mathematical insight, just human.)
Like his other book this was a bit heavy on the examples from American sports for me, but there were plenty of other topics covered. I didn't need convincing of the theory behind regression to the mean but I enjoyed the read anyway and the surprisingly takeaway for me was how uplifting the idea that "it's more average than you think" could be.
May 20, 2019
At the start of the book there are many examples of regression to the mean. This is repetitive and boring. If this was all that the book was going to present it was going to be very boring. But then it moves on to more interesting discussions.
Other topics included are quarterback ratings, the value of draft picks in the NFL and MLB. How to evaluate job candidates, poker strategies, and investing strategies are also present. These topics are much more interesting.
In short, outstanding achievements or events probably include some luck. So expect future results to be not quite so good. Horrible events probably include some bad luck. So expect future results to be somewhat better.
It also warns of things like data mining. Take several outstanding companies and see what they have in common. Perhaps these are traits of a great company. He references the book "Good to Great." But don't take the conclusions for granted. Take these traits and test them on other companies. His example is that these great companies all have the letters I and R in their name. Nobody would assume that these letters make the company great. So don't be so quick to assume that other traits the author mentions really make the companies great.
Good food for thought. If data mining takes place, then remember to tests the results and conclusions on fresh data to see if the properties really have value.
Other topics included are quarterback ratings, the value of draft picks in the NFL and MLB. How to evaluate job candidates, poker strategies, and investing strategies are also present. These topics are much more interesting.
In short, outstanding achievements or events probably include some luck. So expect future results to be not quite so good. Horrible events probably include some bad luck. So expect future results to be somewhat better.
It also warns of things like data mining. Take several outstanding companies and see what they have in common. Perhaps these are traits of a great company. He references the book "Good to Great." But don't take the conclusions for granted. Take these traits and test them on other companies. His example is that these great companies all have the letters I and R in their name. Nobody would assume that these letters make the company great. So don't be so quick to assume that other traits the author mentions really make the companies great.
Good food for thought. If data mining takes place, then remember to tests the results and conclusions on fresh data to see if the properties really have value.
July 23, 2020
The book “What the Luck” written by a famous mathematician Gary Smith, during his life whole he has always tried to convey mathematical reasons in explaining the daily life events. In this book as the title indicates this book explains how important is the role of luck in our daily life, according to him we always try to forget its role our daily life. He says “we are living in a world where success is earned and failure is occurred due to our negligence”.
The chapters of this book comprise of role of luck in the field of Education, Sports, Health and Business, the author has given daily life examples which will make this book easy to understand how luck play vital role in our daily life. According to him the grading system which we use in our schools and colleges is increase the role of luck, he explains this using an example as if a student has worked hard and covered all the topics, may not achieve good grades because his health might not remain fine as it used to be or he may feel panic during the exam, anything could happen, In contrast if a student has covered only a few topics but he may come up with good grades, if anything he had studied would be the question which the examiner may ask. All these are happening due to luck.
After explaining the role of luck in Education, he further proceeds to the field of Sports and he states that the best player might not perform that good in every match and the poor performer might come up with a good performance. It does not mean that a poor ranked team can have the same probability of wining a game as a high ranked team. The previous statement is explained by Gary Smith as “Between the competitive teams (both of higher ranks) the winner is decided by luck and in low competitive games (a game between high rank and low rank team) the winner is decided by their skills”
Gary Smith uses the mathematical equation of Kelly’s, to explain the estimated ability of a player or a student capability. He also suggests that all our educational yardstick should be replaced by Kelly’s equation in order to judge someone.
Estimated Ability=R*(score)+(1-R) *(average score)
Where R is the correlation factor between two events, value of R would increase as a person appears in a test more and more. Same for athletes if the practice more and more the correlation factor would increase.
In the field of health luck also plays a key role, for example the person cholesterol level, blood pressure, sugar level in blood etc. all these are relative to that day of check-up. All these may be normal or abnormal depending on the person what he has eaten on that day or a couple of days earlier.
The journey of the whole book start and end by explaining the phrase “Regression to the Mean” which means everything will return to its original state. These kinds of books must be suggested by teacher to the student so that they understand how luck plays an important role in our life, also it will help the student, athletes, businessman and investors after any loss or a failure they may face. Especially the Students nowadays have become so depressed after getting low grades ultimately ends up by choosing the option of suicide. I strongly feel that these kinds of book would definitely help them.
The chapters of this book comprise of role of luck in the field of Education, Sports, Health and Business, the author has given daily life examples which will make this book easy to understand how luck play vital role in our daily life. According to him the grading system which we use in our schools and colleges is increase the role of luck, he explains this using an example as if a student has worked hard and covered all the topics, may not achieve good grades because his health might not remain fine as it used to be or he may feel panic during the exam, anything could happen, In contrast if a student has covered only a few topics but he may come up with good grades, if anything he had studied would be the question which the examiner may ask. All these are happening due to luck.
After explaining the role of luck in Education, he further proceeds to the field of Sports and he states that the best player might not perform that good in every match and the poor performer might come up with a good performance. It does not mean that a poor ranked team can have the same probability of wining a game as a high ranked team. The previous statement is explained by Gary Smith as “Between the competitive teams (both of higher ranks) the winner is decided by luck and in low competitive games (a game between high rank and low rank team) the winner is decided by their skills”
Gary Smith uses the mathematical equation of Kelly’s, to explain the estimated ability of a player or a student capability. He also suggests that all our educational yardstick should be replaced by Kelly’s equation in order to judge someone.
Estimated Ability=R*(score)+(1-R) *(average score)
Where R is the correlation factor between two events, value of R would increase as a person appears in a test more and more. Same for athletes if the practice more and more the correlation factor would increase.
In the field of health luck also plays a key role, for example the person cholesterol level, blood pressure, sugar level in blood etc. all these are relative to that day of check-up. All these may be normal or abnormal depending on the person what he has eaten on that day or a couple of days earlier.
The journey of the whole book start and end by explaining the phrase “Regression to the Mean” which means everything will return to its original state. These kinds of books must be suggested by teacher to the student so that they understand how luck plays an important role in our life, also it will help the student, athletes, businessman and investors after any loss or a failure they may face. Especially the Students nowadays have become so depressed after getting low grades ultimately ends up by choosing the option of suicide. I strongly feel that these kinds of book would definitely help them.
January 29, 2021
I don't know if this is a boring book or I hate statistics that much. The author gives sarcastic comments on his writing and I think it's good since this book would be torturing to read. I learned some knowledge from this book like gambler's fallacy, student's ability is not always shown in one test and some companies that did great than others and we learn how we they did better and we see the patterns and it's not really working because patterns changed and we can't take every outcomes or results of a research to be strongly significant because we can't rely on one research because data mining doesn't necessarily would be an effective way to prove your theory since data samples should be varied and come from many backgrounds and a lot of samples are also needed. I also feel like this book gives knowledge about luck but in statistical perspective. I feel like the last chapters are more interesting than the beginning chapters. I almost gave up reading this book because "the-figure-shows" kinda bored me. But I did finish it and not skimmed it . If you like statistics or anything related to statistical perspectives on things, this book might be good.
October 1, 2018
What the Luck? What indeed. I was expecting an interesting book about luck, chance, probability and randomness. What I actually got was an author who has discovered a single mathematical phenomenon and is clearly obsessed by it.
The book comprises chapters about varied topics such as sport, education, business etc. Each of these chapters is a collection of anecdotes that show regression to the mean. Before I was far into chapter two I was internally screaming "Yes - it's regression to the mean. I GET IT!!". I kept hoping he'd move on, but no. His other obsession is sport. And not just any old sport, but American sports (yawn). There is only one chapter where he manages to not mention either football, baseball or (more usually) both.
So, if you are an American sports fan with the attention span of a goldfish, this might be the book for you. Otherwise, I'd avoid it.
The book comprises chapters about varied topics such as sport, education, business etc. Each of these chapters is a collection of anecdotes that show regression to the mean. Before I was far into chapter two I was internally screaming "Yes - it's regression to the mean. I GET IT!!". I kept hoping he'd move on, but no. His other obsession is sport. And not just any old sport, but American sports (yawn). There is only one chapter where he manages to not mention either football, baseball or (more usually) both.
So, if you are an American sports fan with the attention span of a goldfish, this might be the book for you. Otherwise, I'd avoid it.
August 2, 2017
I guess it was acceptable to listen to, but not much fun if i'm honest.
The writer makes so many of the same points continuously that it sometimes seems like some of the things he's implying are somewhat contradictory.
Either way. There's a good lesson to be learned from this book: luck always plays a role no matter what!!
The method of presenting this simpe lesson isn't the best, it's repetitive, and waaaaaaay too statistical. The writer LOVES just throwing out ratios and percentages and numbers one after the other, and i'm one of those people who HATES such a forced focus on statistical figures.
The writer makes so many of the same points continuously that it sometimes seems like some of the things he's implying are somewhat contradictory.
Either way. There's a good lesson to be learned from this book: luck always plays a role no matter what!!
The method of presenting this simpe lesson isn't the best, it's repetitive, and waaaaaaay too statistical. The writer LOVES just throwing out ratios and percentages and numbers one after the other, and i'm one of those people who HATES such a forced focus on statistical figures.
March 14, 2018
I picked this boom solely for the title as it has the word, “luck.” This is for a reading challenge with a key word. The book is repetitive and I ended up listening to it on audio at double speed because after the initial message about luck and how it influences regression to the mean, the bill was just examples of this applied to different fields. I enjoyed the sports examples most, but really to get enough out of this book, one really only needs to read the final chapter (my spouse will love that)!
December 2, 2020
While I enjoyed this book overall, I would say that the author focused on three main points: luck, regression to the mean, and, to a much lesser extent, Kelley's equation. I felt that the author ascribed far took much to luck in a variety of fields and that this hurt his overall thesis. His examples and interpretation of regression to the mean was good but again extended in ways in which I question how strongly he pushes his point. I thought he made his best points when integrating Kelley's equation and this added a lot of value. Worth reading but with some degree of scepticism.
January 22, 2025
Depending on how you are educated or just have common sense, the Luck variable should be self explanatory in most cases. Although i did learn about some things that do have Luck involved (mainly how much there is left to chance in biology and maybe some business stuff), the book itself really doesn't go into details explaining more than just supercicial findings.
Also i must say, for someone outside of USA reading this, this had way too many country specific sport examples along with their jargon and statistics.
Also i must say, for someone outside of USA reading this, this had way too many country specific sport examples along with their jargon and statistics.
July 24, 2024
If there ever was a book dedicated to one single topic in statistics (Regression to the mean) , this would be it !!! The author embarks on a statistical odyssey bemoaning the utter lack of understanding about the literati using his favorite pinatas , sports commentators, medical and investment professionals (I actually agree with him completely on everything that he talks about) but it does get irksome after some time
June 12, 2017
I really enjoyed this read. It was not so 'mathy' as to throw off the more casual reader but had enough to keep me interested as someone who likes the 'methy' approach. The real life examples will provide context for all.
October 28, 2019
The content is fairly similar to Standard Deviations. It's a great book and topic. Reversion to the mean is incredibly important and often appears to give causal significance to theories that would be falsified if this were taken into account.
October 8, 2017
I enjoyed learning about regression to the mean. I had no idea what that was before I read this book. I enjoyed reading about how that affects investing, sports, business.
September 19, 2021
I don't really know much about statistics, so this book being all about regression to the mean was interesting.
October 9, 2021
to many repetitive charts.
November 1, 2022
like the content to the book, it regresses to the mean
November 5, 2023
Speed-read and cherry picked some interesting insights to apply.
December 17, 2023
The guy has 1 idea. He repeats it 342,611 times. I have a degree in mathematics and this was incredibly repetitive for me. I was hoping to learn something, but Gary Smith is a one trick pony.
December 31, 2023
Takes a long, repetitive path to make its point but interesting nonetheless.
April 5, 2024
I was not impressed by the book. It focuses on the topic of Regression to the Mean way too much.
Displaying 1 - 30 of 43 reviews