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The Experts Speak: The Definitive Compendium of Authoritative Misinformation
Did you ever have the uneasy feeling the experts
are not . . . well, expert?
"Stocks have reached what looks like a permanently high plateau."
--Irving Fisher, professor of economics at Yale University, October 17, 1929
"Forget it, Louis, no Civil War picture ever made a nickel."
--Irving Thalberg's warning to Louis B. Mayer regarding Gone With the Wind
"We don't like their sound. Groups of guitars are on the way out."
--Decca Recording Company executive, turning down the Beatles, 1962
"With over fifty foreign cars already on sale here the Japanese auto industry isn't likely to carve out a big share of the market for itself."--Business Week, 1968
"There is no reason for any individual to have a computer in their home."
--President of Digital Equipment Corporation, 1977
"Bill Clinton will lose to any Republican who doesn't drool on stage."
--The Wall Street Journal, in a 1995 editorial
The Experts Speak systematically catalogues, footnotes, and sets straight these and a couple of thousand other examples of expert misunderstanding, miscalculation, egregious prognostication, boo-boos, and just plain lies. The experts have been wrong about everything under, including, and beyond the time, space, the sexes, the races, the environment, economics, politics, crime, education, the media, history, and science. In this expanded and updated edition (now more error-filled than ever), we see just how much the experts don't know. But the book also goes deeper, presenting a through-the-looking-glass chronicle of human the story of what was and is so, as seen through the story of what we wanted to and did believe.
are not . . . well, expert?
"Stocks have reached what looks like a permanently high plateau."
--Irving Fisher, professor of economics at Yale University, October 17, 1929
"Forget it, Louis, no Civil War picture ever made a nickel."
--Irving Thalberg's warning to Louis B. Mayer regarding Gone With the Wind
"We don't like their sound. Groups of guitars are on the way out."
--Decca Recording Company executive, turning down the Beatles, 1962
"With over fifty foreign cars already on sale here the Japanese auto industry isn't likely to carve out a big share of the market for itself."--Business Week, 1968
"There is no reason for any individual to have a computer in their home."
--President of Digital Equipment Corporation, 1977
"Bill Clinton will lose to any Republican who doesn't drool on stage."
--The Wall Street Journal, in a 1995 editorial
The Experts Speak systematically catalogues, footnotes, and sets straight these and a couple of thousand other examples of expert misunderstanding, miscalculation, egregious prognostication, boo-boos, and just plain lies. The experts have been wrong about everything under, including, and beyond the time, space, the sexes, the races, the environment, economics, politics, crime, education, the media, history, and science. In this expanded and updated edition (now more error-filled than ever), we see just how much the experts don't know. But the book also goes deeper, presenting a through-the-looking-glass chronicle of human the story of what was and is so, as seen through the story of what we wanted to and did believe.
445 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1984
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Displaying 1 - 12 of 12 reviews
March 15, 2020
Yogi Berra famously said that it is tough to make predictions, especially about the future. Still, experts in any subject tend to crystal gaze into the future and pronounce what is likely to happen in specific domains where they have expertise. It occurs in computer science, geopolitics, population trends, global warming, macro-economy, stock markets, etc. Many predictions come correct and many others bomb. Even non-experts in a field make accurate and perceptive future predictions. For example, David Gerrold, an American science fiction screenwriter/novelist, made precise predictions in 1999 that in a few years, our phones would morph into a new device. They would become a pocket organizer, a beeper, a calculator, a digital camera, a pocket tape recorder, a music player, and color television. All of them would fit in a box smaller than a deck of cards. He predicted how it would connect wirelessly and function as a desktop system. And that it would connect to full-sized screens and have speech recognition, act as a translator, and send/receive emails. He also warned about the privacy issues that would come with this futuristic technology. The only thing he didn’t do was to call it a ‘smartphone’ but a ‘Personal Information Telecommunications Agent,’ or Pita for short.
However, for every correct prediction, there are tens of bloopers by experts. Ken Olsen was the president, chairman, and founder of Digital Equipment Corporation. He said in 1977, ‘there is no reason anyone would want a computer in their home.’ This book has many such examples from the distant past. I want to give some contemporary cases from climate change. In 2004, The Guardian reported that ‘A secret Pentagon report, suppressed by US defense chiefs and got by The Observer, warns that rising seas will sink major European cities as it plunges Britain into a Siberia-like climate by 2020. Nuclear conflict, mega-droughts, famine, and widespread rioting will erupt across the world.’ That must rank as a massive blooper. Later in 2013, Peter Wadhams, professor of Ocean Physics and Head of the Polar Ocean Physics Group in Cambridge, interviewed in The Guardian, said that Arctic ice would disappear by 2015 if we didn’t mend our ways. Going forward, we have two new predictions to validate in this decade. Climate activist Greta Thunberg announced in Davos in 2019 that we have just eight years left to save the planet. US Democratic Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez announced in Jan 2019 that “the world will end in 12 years if we don’t address climate change,’ Neither Thunberg nor Ocasio-Cortez is an expert on climate science. But the media still reports their pronouncements in all seriousness, deserving of expert predictions.
Since forecasting bloopers have always happened in history, it is useful to take some time to review them, so we do not become overly pessimistic as a result of doomsday naysayers or become too optimistic from sunny stock-market evangelists. This book is about bloopers by experts. It contains thousands of futuristic quotes in various fields ranging from life sciences, economics, environment, politics, stock markets, etc. by experts. It leaves the reader to judge for herself how they panned out, prodded by helpful hints about what happened with those predictions. Though the book is over four hundred pages long, one can read it in any order and in any way one chooses to.
In the introduction, the authors give a checklist of what to watch out for when testing an expert’s futuristic prediction. It is useful to keep it in mind when looking at forecasts. I shall briefly identify some of them here:
Pay attention to projections based on statistics. E.g., remember that most stock market predictions and population projections depend on statistics.
View optimistic predictions optimistically. Remember the projections on self-driving cars. E.g., The Guardian said in 2015 that we would be permanent backseat drivers from 2020. The Business Insider wrote in 2016 that by 2020, fully autonomous vehicles would drive from point A to point B and encounter the entire range of on-road scenarios with no interaction from the driver.
View pessimistic predictions pessimistically. E.g., William Safire, a well-known NYT columnist, wrote in March 1989 that Mikhail Gorbachev would send Soviet tanks and shoot down the dissenters in Eastern Europe because that is what a Soviet leader would always do.
When all or most of the experts agree, be skeptical. It was what happened in the 1960s on world population growth and in the science of Eugenics even earlier. It is what happens in the global warming debate now.
When inspecting a forecast, check who funded the study. There could be a conflict of interest.
Look for keywords in predictions. E.g., Charlie Chaplin dismissed cinema as a ‘fad’ in 1918 and said that audiences only want to see flesh and blood on stage. Similarly, in 1957, the publishers Prentice Hall declined publishing a book on data processing, calling it a ‘fad’ and that it won’t last more than a year.
Watch out for proclamations for the end of the world. Henry Adams proclaimed in 1903 that 1950 would be the year when the world would go burst. Al Gore predicted in 2006 of a possible 20-foot increase in sea levels in the ‘near future’ with the melting or break-off of the ice in Greenland or Antarctica.
I would leave it to the reader to enjoy the book and discover the many predictions of the past. However, I have one gripe with the book. It is that it includes a lot of speculations by politicians, celebrities, businesses, religious leaders, sports personalities, etc. Most of us do not look at them as experts in their domain, and they often voice predictions in areas where they have no expertise. As a result, I felt that many of the quotes lacked the tag of ‘expert opinion.’ Still, a careful reader can find quotes in the book from genuine experts and scientists in their fields, making woefully wrong predictions. There is a chapter on various stock market predictions in history. Today, it is a given that nobody can foresee where the market will go in the short run. However, it is incredible to see how favorably experts viewed the stock market and the prospects for making money just before the start of the Great Depression in Oct 1929.
The book is an enjoyable, easy-paced read. Nowadays, on TV, we are quite used to watching domain experts making pronouncements on everything from the war in Afghanistan to Nutrition and Exercise with often contradictory dos and don’ts. I hope this book will create a healthy skepticism in readers’ minds whenever they listen to expert opinions. At least it may induce one to do some due diligence on them. I think this is the goal of this book, and it is a laudable goal.
However, for every correct prediction, there are tens of bloopers by experts. Ken Olsen was the president, chairman, and founder of Digital Equipment Corporation. He said in 1977, ‘there is no reason anyone would want a computer in their home.’ This book has many such examples from the distant past. I want to give some contemporary cases from climate change. In 2004, The Guardian reported that ‘A secret Pentagon report, suppressed by US defense chiefs and got by The Observer, warns that rising seas will sink major European cities as it plunges Britain into a Siberia-like climate by 2020. Nuclear conflict, mega-droughts, famine, and widespread rioting will erupt across the world.’ That must rank as a massive blooper. Later in 2013, Peter Wadhams, professor of Ocean Physics and Head of the Polar Ocean Physics Group in Cambridge, interviewed in The Guardian, said that Arctic ice would disappear by 2015 if we didn’t mend our ways. Going forward, we have two new predictions to validate in this decade. Climate activist Greta Thunberg announced in Davos in 2019 that we have just eight years left to save the planet. US Democratic Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez announced in Jan 2019 that “the world will end in 12 years if we don’t address climate change,’ Neither Thunberg nor Ocasio-Cortez is an expert on climate science. But the media still reports their pronouncements in all seriousness, deserving of expert predictions.
Since forecasting bloopers have always happened in history, it is useful to take some time to review them, so we do not become overly pessimistic as a result of doomsday naysayers or become too optimistic from sunny stock-market evangelists. This book is about bloopers by experts. It contains thousands of futuristic quotes in various fields ranging from life sciences, economics, environment, politics, stock markets, etc. by experts. It leaves the reader to judge for herself how they panned out, prodded by helpful hints about what happened with those predictions. Though the book is over four hundred pages long, one can read it in any order and in any way one chooses to.
In the introduction, the authors give a checklist of what to watch out for when testing an expert’s futuristic prediction. It is useful to keep it in mind when looking at forecasts. I shall briefly identify some of them here:
Pay attention to projections based on statistics. E.g., remember that most stock market predictions and population projections depend on statistics.
View optimistic predictions optimistically. Remember the projections on self-driving cars. E.g., The Guardian said in 2015 that we would be permanent backseat drivers from 2020. The Business Insider wrote in 2016 that by 2020, fully autonomous vehicles would drive from point A to point B and encounter the entire range of on-road scenarios with no interaction from the driver.
View pessimistic predictions pessimistically. E.g., William Safire, a well-known NYT columnist, wrote in March 1989 that Mikhail Gorbachev would send Soviet tanks and shoot down the dissenters in Eastern Europe because that is what a Soviet leader would always do.
When all or most of the experts agree, be skeptical. It was what happened in the 1960s on world population growth and in the science of Eugenics even earlier. It is what happens in the global warming debate now.
When inspecting a forecast, check who funded the study. There could be a conflict of interest.
Look for keywords in predictions. E.g., Charlie Chaplin dismissed cinema as a ‘fad’ in 1918 and said that audiences only want to see flesh and blood on stage. Similarly, in 1957, the publishers Prentice Hall declined publishing a book on data processing, calling it a ‘fad’ and that it won’t last more than a year.
Watch out for proclamations for the end of the world. Henry Adams proclaimed in 1903 that 1950 would be the year when the world would go burst. Al Gore predicted in 2006 of a possible 20-foot increase in sea levels in the ‘near future’ with the melting or break-off of the ice in Greenland or Antarctica.
I would leave it to the reader to enjoy the book and discover the many predictions of the past. However, I have one gripe with the book. It is that it includes a lot of speculations by politicians, celebrities, businesses, religious leaders, sports personalities, etc. Most of us do not look at them as experts in their domain, and they often voice predictions in areas where they have no expertise. As a result, I felt that many of the quotes lacked the tag of ‘expert opinion.’ Still, a careful reader can find quotes in the book from genuine experts and scientists in their fields, making woefully wrong predictions. There is a chapter on various stock market predictions in history. Today, it is a given that nobody can foresee where the market will go in the short run. However, it is incredible to see how favorably experts viewed the stock market and the prospects for making money just before the start of the Great Depression in Oct 1929.
The book is an enjoyable, easy-paced read. Nowadays, on TV, we are quite used to watching domain experts making pronouncements on everything from the war in Afghanistan to Nutrition and Exercise with often contradictory dos and don’ts. I hope this book will create a healthy skepticism in readers’ minds whenever they listen to expert opinions. At least it may induce one to do some due diligence on them. I think this is the goal of this book, and it is a laudable goal.
September 24, 2020
“FDR will be a one-term president.” [New York Herald Tribune commentator in 1935.]
“There is not much demand for animal stories in the U.S.A.” [Dial Press rejecting George Orwell’s Animal Farm]
“Who the hell wants to hear actors talk?” [Harry M. Warner, President of Warner Bros. Pictures, 1927]
Leafing through the pages of “The Experts Speak” gives the reader schadenfreude over and over at “so-called experts” as they bomb in their predictions of the future from the arts to politics to science. After a while though, the premise wears out its welcome. When that happens remember the value of a book like this is as a reference book when you desperately need an ironic quote to write an article or review. Wish “The Experts Speak” had been around when I was in college. Last updated in 1998, it is time for a new edition.
“There is not much demand for animal stories in the U.S.A.” [Dial Press rejecting George Orwell’s Animal Farm]
“Who the hell wants to hear actors talk?” [Harry M. Warner, President of Warner Bros. Pictures, 1927]
Leafing through the pages of “The Experts Speak” gives the reader schadenfreude over and over at “so-called experts” as they bomb in their predictions of the future from the arts to politics to science. After a while though, the premise wears out its welcome. When that happens remember the value of a book like this is as a reference book when you desperately need an ironic quote to write an article or review. Wish “The Experts Speak” had been around when I was in college. Last updated in 1998, it is time for a new edition.
July 22, 2015
Geniale!
1984 is a failure
Laurence Brander - British literary scholar and critic, 1954
Hasn't anyone noticed that the worst criminal have been corrupted, since their infancy, by injurious reading? Hasn't anyone beheld them, in the course of their trials, confessing that it was sordid literature that dragged them onto the road which ended fatally at prison?
E. Caron - Director of Education for the city of Paris, 1874
No danger at all. We've hired him for pur act... Within two months we will have pushed Hitler so far in the corner that he'll squeak
Franz von Papen - Former chancellor of Germany, 1933
My invention can be exploited for a certain time as a scientific curiosity, but apart from that it has no commercial value whatsoever
Auguste Lumière - French co-inventor of the Lumière motion-picture camera. 1895
You'd better learn secretarial work or else get married
Emmeline Snively - Director of the Blue Book Moelling agency, counseling would-be model Marilyn Monroe, 1944
When the Paris Exhibition closes, electric light will close with it and no more will be heard of it
Erasmus Wilson - Professor at Oxford University, 1878
The telephone is an amazing invention, but who would ever want to use one of them?
Rutherford Hayes - President of the United States, 1876
What the hell is the computer good for?
Robert Lloyd - engineer at the Advance Computing Systems division of Internation Business Machines, 1968
Man will never reach the moon regardless of all future scientific advances
Dr. Lee DrForest - Inventor of the audion tube, 1957
1984 is a failure
Laurence Brander - British literary scholar and critic, 1954
Hasn't anyone noticed that the worst criminal have been corrupted, since their infancy, by injurious reading? Hasn't anyone beheld them, in the course of their trials, confessing that it was sordid literature that dragged them onto the road which ended fatally at prison?
E. Caron - Director of Education for the city of Paris, 1874
No danger at all. We've hired him for pur act... Within two months we will have pushed Hitler so far in the corner that he'll squeak
Franz von Papen - Former chancellor of Germany, 1933
My invention can be exploited for a certain time as a scientific curiosity, but apart from that it has no commercial value whatsoever
Auguste Lumière - French co-inventor of the Lumière motion-picture camera. 1895
You'd better learn secretarial work or else get married
Emmeline Snively - Director of the Blue Book Moelling agency, counseling would-be model Marilyn Monroe, 1944
When the Paris Exhibition closes, electric light will close with it and no more will be heard of it
Erasmus Wilson - Professor at Oxford University, 1878
The telephone is an amazing invention, but who would ever want to use one of them?
Rutherford Hayes - President of the United States, 1876
What the hell is the computer good for?
Robert Lloyd - engineer at the Advance Computing Systems division of Internation Business Machines, 1968
Man will never reach the moon regardless of all future scientific advances
Dr. Lee DrForest - Inventor of the audion tube, 1957
December 24, 2023
Having been down with a cold for a few days, I was in the mood for some humor. Here are a few things that struck me.
"What can be more palpably absurd than the prospect held out of locomotives traveling twice as fast as stagecoaches?
—The Quarterly Review, England, March 1825
"[T]hat any general system of conveying passengers would ... go at a velocity exceeding ten miles an hour, or thereabouts, is extremely improbable.
—Thomas Tredgold (British railroad designer), Practical Treatise on Railroads and Carriages, 1835
"Railways can be of no advantage to rural areas, since agricultural products are too heavy or too voluminous to be transported by them.”
—F.-J.-B. Noel, "The Railroads Will Be Ruinous for France, and Especially for the Cities Through Which They Go" (pamphlet), 1842
"Rail travel at high speed is not possible because passengers, unable to breathe, would die of asphyxia.“
—Dr. Dionysus Lardner (1793—1859) (Professor of Natural Philosophy and Astronomy at University College, London)
(Page 251)
“But as a means of amusement, the idea of aerial travel has cumbersome great promise.... We shall fly for pleasure.”
—T. Baron Russell, A Hundred Years Hence, 1905
"[Al popular fallacy is to expect enormous speed to be obtained … [T]here is no hope of [the airplane's] competing for racing speed with either our locomotives or our automobiles.
—William Henry Pickering (American astronomer at Harvard College Observatory), Aeronautics, 1908
"[T]he aeroplane ... is not capable of unlimited magnification. It is not likely that it will ever carry more than five or seven passengers. High-speed monoplanes will carry even less.
—Waldemar Kaempfert (Managing Editor of Scientific American and author of The New Art of Flying), "Aircraft and the Future, " Outlook, June 28, 1913
[A photograph of ] “Nevada Civil Defense observers, all but a few of whose eyesight was preserved by protective glasses, marveled at the sight of the May 5, 1955 "Operation Cue" atomic blast, which was set off in the atmosphere a mere seven-and-a-half miles from their lookout point.”
”In 1982, Dr. Clark Heath, an epidemiologist for the Centers for Disease Control in Atlanta, testified in a negligence lawsuit brought against the U.S. government by Utah cancer victims. According to Dr. Heath, from 5 to 20 times the expected number Of leukemia cases had been contracted in fallout zones associated with atmospheric atomic tests conducted during the 1950s. Dr. Glyn G. Caldwell, also of the Centers for Disease Control, testified that the number of leukemia deaths among troops observing a 1957 A-test was three times higher than normal.”
[see also: The Radiation-Hazard Bugaboo, page 2381
(Page 272)
I remember as I child we were advised not to eat the livers of deer that we shot.
Only much later in life did I learn that dad and other workers in the Utah Red Wash oil field got a sunburn from the Nevada nuclear tests.
"What can be more palpably absurd than the prospect held out of locomotives traveling twice as fast as stagecoaches?
—The Quarterly Review, England, March 1825
"[T]hat any general system of conveying passengers would ... go at a velocity exceeding ten miles an hour, or thereabouts, is extremely improbable.
—Thomas Tredgold (British railroad designer), Practical Treatise on Railroads and Carriages, 1835
"Railways can be of no advantage to rural areas, since agricultural products are too heavy or too voluminous to be transported by them.”
—F.-J.-B. Noel, "The Railroads Will Be Ruinous for France, and Especially for the Cities Through Which They Go" (pamphlet), 1842
"Rail travel at high speed is not possible because passengers, unable to breathe, would die of asphyxia.“
—Dr. Dionysus Lardner (1793—1859) (Professor of Natural Philosophy and Astronomy at University College, London)
(Page 251)
“But as a means of amusement, the idea of aerial travel has cumbersome great promise.... We shall fly for pleasure.”
—T. Baron Russell, A Hundred Years Hence, 1905
"[Al popular fallacy is to expect enormous speed to be obtained … [T]here is no hope of [the airplane's] competing for racing speed with either our locomotives or our automobiles.
—William Henry Pickering (American astronomer at Harvard College Observatory), Aeronautics, 1908
"[T]he aeroplane ... is not capable of unlimited magnification. It is not likely that it will ever carry more than five or seven passengers. High-speed monoplanes will carry even less.
—Waldemar Kaempfert (Managing Editor of Scientific American and author of The New Art of Flying), "Aircraft and the Future, " Outlook, June 28, 1913
[A photograph of ] “Nevada Civil Defense observers, all but a few of whose eyesight was preserved by protective glasses, marveled at the sight of the May 5, 1955 "Operation Cue" atomic blast, which was set off in the atmosphere a mere seven-and-a-half miles from their lookout point.”
”In 1982, Dr. Clark Heath, an epidemiologist for the Centers for Disease Control in Atlanta, testified in a negligence lawsuit brought against the U.S. government by Utah cancer victims. According to Dr. Heath, from 5 to 20 times the expected number Of leukemia cases had been contracted in fallout zones associated with atmospheric atomic tests conducted during the 1950s. Dr. Glyn G. Caldwell, also of the Centers for Disease Control, testified that the number of leukemia deaths among troops observing a 1957 A-test was three times higher than normal.”
[see also: The Radiation-Hazard Bugaboo, page 2381
(Page 272)
I remember as I child we were advised not to eat the livers of deer that we shot.
Only much later in life did I learn that dad and other workers in the Utah Red Wash oil field got a sunburn from the Nevada nuclear tests.
perpertualbeta
January 16, 2026Why "The Experts Speak" Is Essential Reading for Beginner Investors
Just reviewed one of the most unexpectedly valuable investing books I've encountered: The Experts Speak by Christopher Cerf and Victor Navasky.
Here's the twist: it's not actually an investing book.
It's a compilation of spectacularly wrong predictions made by presidents, scientists, economists, generals, and CEOs throughout history. Think of Thomas Edison declaring something "impossible," or military leaders dismissing threats that later materialised.
So why should investors care?
Because the entire investment industry runs on predictions: where markets will go, which sectors will boom, and when recessions will hit, yet this book proves, page after page, that even the most competent experts systematically fail at forecasting the future.
The lesson? Successful investing isn't about predicting tomorrow. It's about building resilient strategies that work regardless of what happens.
After reading hundreds of failed forecasts from brilliant minds, you realise:
• Confidence doesn't equal accuracy
• The future is fundamentally uncertain
• Process beats prophecy every time
It's funny, entertaining, and surprisingly profound. If you're learning to invest, this might be the most critical "non-investing" book you'll read.
Full review on my Substack: https://attilarebak.substack.com/p/th...
I write about books that help beginner investors build better financial habits and more innovative thinking. If that interests you, come check it out!
Just reviewed one of the most unexpectedly valuable investing books I've encountered: The Experts Speak by Christopher Cerf and Victor Navasky.
Here's the twist: it's not actually an investing book.
It's a compilation of spectacularly wrong predictions made by presidents, scientists, economists, generals, and CEOs throughout history. Think of Thomas Edison declaring something "impossible," or military leaders dismissing threats that later materialised.
So why should investors care?
Because the entire investment industry runs on predictions: where markets will go, which sectors will boom, and when recessions will hit, yet this book proves, page after page, that even the most competent experts systematically fail at forecasting the future.
The lesson? Successful investing isn't about predicting tomorrow. It's about building resilient strategies that work regardless of what happens.
After reading hundreds of failed forecasts from brilliant minds, you realise:
• Confidence doesn't equal accuracy
• The future is fundamentally uncertain
• Process beats prophecy every time
It's funny, entertaining, and surprisingly profound. If you're learning to invest, this might be the most critical "non-investing" book you'll read.
Full review on my Substack: https://attilarebak.substack.com/p/th...
I write about books that help beginner investors build better financial habits and more innovative thinking. If that interests you, come check it out!
October 20, 2022
The book is dated in that it only covers misinformation up to the 1980s. I did enjoy the quote from Wilbur Wright stating definitively that heavier than air flight would not happen for another 50 years. 2 years later he made it happen himself.
I believe this is the second time I have read this book.
I believe this is the second time I have read this book.
January 27, 2024
An interesting and irreverant look into how wrong the "Experts" often are. It's an easy read all by itself or a great coffee/bathroom book to go through at your own pace. I think you'll enjoy it, although that expert opinion could turn out to be wrong.
May 26, 2019
The book proves that the 'experts' have been wrong.
Humbling
Humbling
April 30, 2008
This is a great book to read in little pieces. Each quote is only a few sentences, and you can read each section of the book in a few minutes. Great if you have to watch the kids and need to break up an argument.
After reading this book, I could be an expert. I just to get things grossly wrong once in awhile.
After reading this book, I could be an expert. I just to get things grossly wrong once in awhile.
November 12, 2008
A compilation of famous last words and othet hyperbole from so-called experts, as the title would indicate. There are some genuinely funny misstatements in this volume. Mostly it's an exercise in sniggering.
January 4, 2015
The idea is not bad at all: a compendium of exhibitions of false confidence in prediction from so-called experts. The execution is on the overdone side. Would have been a much better book if it's 1/5 in size.
October 18, 2012
Definitely designed for being dipped into, not read all at once.
Displaying 1 - 12 of 12 reviews