我英文水平不太好，本沒有資格寫這樣一篇文字，真的是這本書翻譯的太爛了，我中英參照閱讀的過程中，有一些翻譯真的影響理解。即使是我這樣的英語渣，都忍不了的部分，我摘抄一些放在下面，供大家閱讀的時候參考。也希望哪位大佬有空的時候能夠重新把塔勒布的書翻譯一下，不要被中信出版社糟蹋。
本人閱讀的是中信出版社 2012.7（2017.9 重印）版，譯者是盛逢時。
1
書名：Fooled by Randomness: The Hidden Role of Chance in Life and in the Markets
翻譯：《隨機漫步的傻瓜：發現市場和人生中的隱藏機遇》
探討：結合書中內容，書名的含義應該是——被隨機性愚弄：人生和市場機會背後的另一面
2位置：自序第一段
原文：This book is the synthesis of, on one hand, the no-nonsense mathematical trader (self-styled "practitioner of uncertainty") who spent his life trying to resist being fooled by randomness and trick the emotions associated with uncertainty and, on the other, the aesthetically obsessed, literature-loving human being willing to be fooled by any form of nonsense that is polished, refined, original, and tasteful. I am not capable of avoiding being the fool of randomness; what I can do is confine it to where it brings some aesthetic gratification.
書中翻譯：缺失
探討：這本書是作者兩種特質的結合體。一方面，作者是一個言簡意賅的數學交易者（自詡為「不確定性的實踐者」），他一生都在努力抵制被隨機性愚弄和與不確定性有關的情感欺騙，另一方面，作者是一個迷戀美學、熱愛文學作品的人，願意被各種優雅、精緻、見解獨特、有品位的鬼話所愚弄。我無法避免成為隨機性的傻瓜；我能做的就是把它限制在能帶來某種審美滿足的地方。
3位置：自序最後一段之前
書中翻譯：缺失
原文：
Second, I have been lucky to meet Myles Thompson and David Wilson, when they both were at J. Wiley & Sons. Myles has vision - he is the reverse "me too" publisher. He understands that books need not be written to satisfy a pre-defined labeled audience, but that a book will find its own unique set of readers - thus giving more credit to the reader than the off-the-rack publisher. As to David, he believed enough in the book to push me to take it into its natural course, free of all labels and taxonomies. David saw me the way I view myself; someone who has a passion for probability and randomness, who is obsessed with literature but happens to be a trader, rather than a generic "expert". He also saved my idiosyncratic style from the dulling of the editing process (for all its faults, the style is mine). Finally, Mina Samuels proved to be the greatest conceivable editor: immensely intuitive, cultured, aesthetically concerned, yet nonintrusive.
Many friends have fed me with ideas during conversations, ideas that found their way into the text. I can mention the usual suspects, all of them prime conversationalists: Cynthia Shelton Taleb, Helyette Geman, Marie-Christine Riachi, Paul Wilmott, Shaiy Pilpel, David DeRosa, Eric Briys, Sid Kahn, Jim Gatheral, Bernard Oppetit, Cyrus Pirasteh, Martin Mayer, Bruno Dupire, Raphael Douady, Marco Avellaneda, Didier Javice, Neil Chriss, and Philippe Asseily.
Some of these chapters were composed and discussed as part of the "Odeon Circle", as my friends and I met with a varying degree of regularity (on Wednesdays at 10 p.m. after my Courant class) at the bar of the restaurant Odeon in Tribecca. Genius loci ("the spirit of the place") and outstanding Odeon staff member Tarek Khelifi made sure that we were well taken care of and enforced our assiduity by making me feel guilty on no-shows, thus helping greatly with the elaboration of the book. We owe him a lot.
I must also acknowledge the people who read the MS, diligently helped with the errors, or contributed to the elaboration of the book with useful comments: Inge Ivchenko, Danny Tosto, Manos Vourkoutiotis, Stan Metelits, Jack Rabinowitz, Silverio Foresi, Achilles Venetoulias, and Nicholas Stephanou. Erik Stettler was invaluable in his role as a shadow copy editor. All mistakes are mine.
Finally, many versions of this book sat on the web, yielding sporadic (and random) bursts of letters of encouragement, corrections, and valuable questions which made me weave answers into the text. Many chapters of this book came in response to readers' questions. Francesco Corielli from Bocconi alerted me on the biases in the dissemination of scientific results.
探討：這段不太重要，我就不翻譯了，不過對於翻譯能漏掉這麼大一段表示不理解。只翻譯了「首先」，後面第二、第三都沒翻譯。
4
位置：第一章 P10 最後一段
書中翻譯：他從來不賣「未抵押期權」（naked options，一種操作策略，有可能發生很大的損失）
原文：He never sells "naked options" (a strategy that would leave him exposed to large possible losses)
探討：naked options 應該翻譯成「裸期權」，裸期權又稱無保護期權、無掩護選擇權，是指期權賣方本身並未持有期權標的資產的期權，如股票看漲期權賣方本身並沒有持有期權相應的股票（百度百科）。
5
位置：第一章 P13 標題
書中翻譯：富豪交易員約翰
原文：John the High-Yield Trader
探討：這裡不是富豪的意思，是高收益債，標題應該叫「高收益債交易員約翰」
6
位置：第一章 P13 最後一段
書中翻譯：約翰和塔利波兩人的太太彼此也認識，但塔利波太太和約翰的太太在一起時非常不自在，她總覺得約翰的太太不只愛炫耀，也瞧不起她。塔利波見多了交易員發財後，一心想要成為葡萄酒收藏家和歌劇愛好者的德性，而他太太也很少碰到三緘其口的首富，躋身新富階級的人這輩子窮怕了，一有了錢便產生唯恐天下不知的補償心理。塔利波常說，身為交易員，唯一的缺點是會見到一大筆錢掉到毫無心理準備的人手裡，逼得他們不得不去試著了解維瓦爾第的《四季》這種「優美的」音樂。
原文：The wives of John and Nero were acquaintances, of the health-club type of acquaintance, but Nero's wife felt extremely uncomfortable in the company of John's. She felt that the lady was not merely trying to impress her, but was treating her like someone inferior. While Nero had become inured to the sight of traders getting rich (and trying too hard to become sophisticated by turning into wine collectors and opera lovers), his wife had rarely encountered repressed new wealth - the type of people who have felt the sting of indigence at some point in their lives and want to get even by exhibiting their wares. The only dark side of being a trader, Nero often says, is the sight of money being showered on unprepared people who are suddenly taught that Vivaldi's Four Seasons is "refined" music.
探討：這段話大體沒什麼問題，但是讀起來不是很通順。嘗試翻譯如下：
約翰和塔利波兩人的太太彼此認識，就是相約健身房健身的那種「認識」，但塔利波的太太和約翰的太太在一起時感覺非常不自在。她覺得約翰太太不僅僅想給她留下好印象，更待她如下人一樣。儘管塔利波已經司空見慣那些變得富有的交易員（他們太難通過成為葡萄酒收藏家和歌劇愛好者變得圓滑老練），他的太太可很少碰到「暴發戶」——那種人在人生的某些時刻感受過貧窮的刺痛感，就希望通過展示他們所有獲得心理平衡。塔利波經常說，作為交易員，唯一的陰暗面是金錢落到那些毫無準備的人們手裡的景象，他們突然被教導說維瓦爾第的《四季》是「優美的」音樂。
7
位置：第二章 P22 第一段
書中翻譯：這種以不同方式呈現的歷史，我們稱之為「另類歷史」。
原文：Such substitute courses of events are called alternative histories.
探討：翻譯的人估計對數理統計的專有名詞不太熟悉。塔勒布這裡的「alternative histories」借用的是數理統計的概念。數理統計裡面有原假設（Null Hypothesis）和備擇假設（Alternative Hypothesis），對應在這裡就是原歷史（Null History）和備擇歷史（Alternative History）。因此這句話應該翻譯為，「這種歷史事件的另一種可能過程被稱為備擇歷史」。
8
位置：第二章 P26 最後一段
書中翻譯：因此我認為人分成截然相反的兩類：一類絕不接受隨機性，另一類則為隨機性所苦。
原文：I thus view people distributed across two polar categories: on one extreme, those who never accept the notion of randomness; on the other, those who are tortured by it.
探討：distributed across 應該理解為分布在兩種極端類型之間。應該翻譯為「因此我認為人分布在兩種極端之間：一個極端是完全不接受隨機性，另一個極端是為隨機性所苦。」
9
位置：第二章 P31 中間一段
書中翻譯：……躺的多是自稱重視「財務盈餘」的人。
原文：……stocked with the self-styled "bottom line" people
探討： "bottom line"結合上下文，應該是指「結果導向」。翻譯的人在上一段還翻譯成「結果導向」。
10
位置：第三章 P39 第一段
書中翻譯：我們不關心比如說一年後投資人的財富有多少，但關心這段時間內他所有財富的起落。
原文：We are not concerned with what the investor's worth would be in, say, a year, but rather of the heart-wrenching rides he may experience during that period.
探討：翻譯為「我們不關心投資者的財富未來（比如說一年後）會有多少，而是關心他在這段期間可能經歷的令人心痛的旅程」。
11
位置：第三章 P41 最後一段
書中翻譯：數字專家
原文：quants
探討：這種人被稱為「寬客」，或者叫做「金融工程師」。文中所有「數字專家」都應該翻譯成「寬客」。
12位置：第三章 P43 題目及第一段
書中翻譯：題目「歷史的意義」，第一段有一個「造物主」
原文：題目——「Fun in My Attic」，造物主——「Demiurgus」
探討：造物主這裡還應該更加明確一些，Demiurgus 是柏拉圖《Timaeus》（翻譯作「迪美吾斯」或「蒂邁歐」）中提到創造世界的神祗，在柏拉圖的哲學觀中，在先於不永恆世界（會變化的世界）被創造之前，有一個永恆且完美的世界，而 Demiurge 根據永恆世界的藍圖去編織出不永恆世界的身體和靈魂。這裡不是傳統意義上的「上帝」。
13位置：第三章 P45 「向未來學習」第一段
書中翻譯：後者試圖在歷史的演變過程中發現某些定律，據以形成理論，並且解釋各種事件。這是黑格爾哲學和偽科學的歷史主義。
原文：the grand-scale historicism that aims to interpret events with theories based on uncovering some laws in the evolution of history - the sort of Hegelianism and pseudoscientific historicism leading to such calls as the end of history (it is pseudoscientific because it draws theories from past events without allowing for the fact that such combinations of events might have arisen from randomness; it is mostly pseudoscientific because there is no way to verify the claims in a controlled experiment).
探討：應該翻譯為，大量的歷史學家試圖在歷史的演變過程中發現某些定律，據以形成理論，並且解釋各種事件。這些黑格爾主義者和偽科學歷史學家得出了所謂「歷史終結論」（歷史終結論是偽科學，因為它從過去的事件中抽象出理論，而沒有考慮到這種歷史事件的結合可能是因為隨機性的事實。它通常是偽科學，因為沒有辦法在對照實驗中驗證它的說法）。這段翻譯中提到的「歷史終結論」，來源於黑格爾，黑格爾認為歷史是「絕對精神的自我展開。」歷史是觀念的歷史，這個歷史本身就有終結之處，終結的地方是「絕對的歷史精神」。史丹福大學政治學家 Francis Fukuyama 於 1989 年發表了《The End of History》一文。福山說，自由民主就是這絕對精神自我展開的終極。不過有趣的是，福山在這本書面世 20 年後，親自推翻自己的觀點。
14位置：第三章 P45 標題 P46 標題
書中翻譯：前面是「向未來學習」，後面是「拒絕歷史」
原文：前面是「Denigration of History」，後面是「The Stove is Hot」
探討：前面應該是「無視歷史教訓」，後面應該是「爐子燙手」。
15位置：第四章 P61 標題及第一段
書中翻譯：標題「隨機的作品」，第二句「要區分天花亂墜的人和真正的思想家，還有另一種更為有趣的方式。」
原文：標題「Reverse Turning Test」，第二句「For there is another, far more entertaining way to make the distinction between the babbler and the thinker.」
探討：標題應該翻譯成「反向圖靈測試」，第二句應該是，「隨機性在另一件事上也有幫助，即用更為有趣的方式區分絮絮叨叨的人和思想家」。
16位置：P63 「隨機性之美」之前
書中翻譯：漏掉了一節
原文：
The Father of All Pseudothinkers
It is hard to resist discussion of artificial history without a comment on the father of all pseudothinkers, Hegel. Hegel writes a jargon that is meaningless outside of a chic Left-Bank Parisian cafe or the humanities department of some university extremely well insulated from the real world. I suggest this passage from the German "philosopher" (this passage was detected, translated and reviled by Karl Popper):
Sound is the change in the specific condition of segregation of the material parts, and in the negation of this condition; merely an abstract or an ideal ideality, as it were, of that specification. But this change, accordingly, is itself immediately the negation of the material specific subsistence; which is, therefore, real ideality of specific gravity and cohesion, i.e. - heat. The heating up of sounding bodies, just as of beaten and or rubbed ones, is the appearance of heat, originating conceptually together with sound.
Even a Monte Carlo engine could not sound as random as the great philosophical master thinker (it would take plenty of sample runs to get the mixture of heat and sound). People call that philosophy and frequently finance it with taxpayer subsidies! Now consider that Hegelian thinking is generally linked to a "scientific" approach to history; it has produced such results as Marxist regimes and even a branch called "neo-Hegelian" thinking. These "thinkers" should be given an undergraduate-level class on statistical sampling theory prior to their release in the open world.
探討：翻譯如下：
偽思想家之父
我們在討論「虛構歷史」時，不對偽思想家之父——黑格爾發表一些看法是不可能的。黑格爾寫下的專業術語，除了在別致的巴黎左岸咖啡店或者某些完全與世隔絕的大學人文系外，一點意義都沒有。我想起這位德國「哲學家」的一段話（卡爾·波普爾發現、翻譯並批判了這段話）：
「聲音是物質各部分分離的特殊狀態的變化，是這種狀態之否定的結果——純然是特殊的一種抽象或一種理念的理想。因此，這種變化本身直接就是物質特定存在的否定；因而它是特殊的重力凝聚力的實在的理想，亦即熱。發聲物體的升溫，就像物體的加熱和摩擦的物體的升溫一樣，是一種熱現象，在概念上是與聲音同時產生的。」（摘自《開放社會及其敵人》）
即使一個蒙特卡羅引擎也不能像這位偉大的哲學巨擘一樣表述的這麼「亂七八糟」（引擎需要大量的樣本運行才能把「聲音」和「熱現象」放在一起）。人們把這個稱為「哲學」，還經常用納稅人的錢支持它！現在普遍認為黑格爾思維是一種「科學的」對待歷史的方法，在其後產生了馬克思主義政權，甚至產生了被稱為「新黑格爾學派」哲學分支。這些「思想家」應該在他們文章發表到這個開放世界之前，學習一門關於統計抽樣理論的本科課程。
17位置：第四章 P65 最後一段
書中翻譯：漏掉了一段
原文：
There is a Yiddish saying: If I am going to be forced to eat pork, it better be of the best kind. If I am going to be fooled by randomness, it better be of the beautiful (and harmless) kind. This point will be made again in Part III.
探討：翻譯如下：
意第緒語的諺語說過：如果我不得不吃豬肉，最好是最好的那塊。同樣地，如果我要被隨機性愚弄，最好是無害且美麗的那部分。這一點我們在 Part III 裡面還要提到。
18位置：第五章 P78-P79
探討：主要問題在於排版。作者描繪了「隨機性的傻瓜」的基本特徵，包括 6 點。所以從 P78 第二段到 P79 的文字都應該是小字。P78 第二段是 1，P79 每一段是 2-6。
19位置：第五章 P81 倒數第二段
書中翻譯：比方說，古爾德發現，有許多的證據顯示，確實有他所說的「基因噪聲」或「負突變」，我們得承認他比較像是科學知識的傳播者，而非純粹的科學家。他把這理論延伸得有點過頭，因此觸怒了一些同行。學術辯論因之而起，另一方的主將是道金斯，生物學家大多認為後者對於隨機性的數學素養較強。負突變是指雖然從繁殖適應性的觀點來看，新的特質變得比所取代的特質還差，卻還是能夠生存下去，但不能期望它們維持好幾代以上，即所謂的臨時聚集。
原文：For instance, Steven Jay Gould (admittedly more of a popularizer than a genuine scientist) found ample evidence of what he calls "genetic noise", or "negative mutations", thus causing the wrath of some of his colleagues (he took the idea a little too far). An academic debate ensued, plotting Gould against colleagues like Dawkins who were considered by their peers as better trained in the mathematics of randomness. Negative mutations are traits that survive in spite of being worse, from the reproductive fitness standpoint, than the ones they replaced. However, they cannot be expected to last more than a few generations (under what is called temporal aggregation).
探討：翻譯如下：
比方說，古爾德（誠然，與其說他是一個真正的科學家，不如說他是一個大眾科普作家）找到了足夠的證據證明他所說的「基因噪聲」或「負突變」，而這引起了他的一些同事的憤怒（古爾德把這個概念引申過頭了）。他們策劃了一場學術辯論，讓古爾德和像道金斯（道金斯在同儕中被認為在隨機性數學方面受過更好的訓練）這樣的同事辯論。從繁殖適應性的觀點來看，負突變是指儘管比它們所取代的更糟，但仍能存活的性狀。但是，這種性狀預期不會持續幾代以上（在所謂的「時頻歸併」法下）。
20位置：第七章 P101 第一段
書中翻譯：休謨厭惡 18 世紀當時的科學受到培根的影響，從士林哲學轉而對天真的經驗論產生過度的反應。士林哲學奠基於演繹法則，不強調對真實世界的觀察。培根反對在沒有實際成果的情形下，「結成學習蜘蛛網」。受到培根的影響，科學轉而強調經驗的觀察。問題是，如果方法不適當，經驗觀察會引導你誤入歧途。休謨警告我們不要形成這樣的知識，並且強調搜集和解讀知識時應該持嚴謹的態度——這稱做知識論。
原文：Hume had been irked by the fact that science in his day (the eighteenth century) had experienced a swing from scholasticism, entirely based on deductive reasoning (no emphasis on the observation of the real world) to, owing to Francis Bacon, an overreaction into naive and unstructured empiricism. Bacon had argued against "spinning the cobweb of learning" with little practical result. Science had shifted, thanks to Bacon, into an emphasis on empirical observation. The problem is that, without a proper method, empirical observations can lead you astray. Hume came to warn us against such knowledge, and to stress the need for some rigor in the gathering and interpretation of knowledge - what is called epistemology (from episteme, Greek for learning). Hume is the first modern epistemologist, (epistemologists are often called methodologists or philosophers of science).
探討：翻譯如下：
在休謨那個時期（十八世紀），由於弗朗西斯·培根，科學經歷了從完全基於演繹推理（不注重對現實世界的觀察）的經院哲學過度轉向天真和非結構化的經驗主義，這使休謨感到厭煩。培根反對沒有實踐結果的「閉門造車」。由於培根，科學當時轉而強調實證觀察。問題在於，沒有合適的方法，實證觀察可能會讓你誤入歧途。休謨開始提醒我們警惕這類基於實證的知識，強調在知識的收集和解釋過程中保持一些嚴謹——這被稱為認識論（epistemology 來源於 episteme，希臘語中表示「學習」）。休謨是最早的現代知識學家（知識學家經常被稱為方法論家或科學哲學家）。
21
位置：第七章 P105 倒數第二段
書中翻譯：當時不覺得波普爾有什麼重要。……（後面缺失）
原文：It was either my conditioning by the intellectual-chic culture at the time (too much Plato, too many Marxists, too much Hegel, too many pseudoscientific intellectuals), the educational system (too many conjectures ropounded as truth) or the fact that I was too young and was reading too much then to make a bridge to reality.
探討：翻譯如下：
要麼就是我受到那時知識分子流行文化（太多柏拉圖，太多馬克思主義者，太多黑格爾，太多偽科學知識分子）和教育體系（太多被認為是真理的猜想）的薰陶，要麼就是我那時太年輕，讀了太多卻無法架起通向現實的橋梁。
22位置：第七章 P106 第二段
書中翻譯：據說人們通常記得在什麼時候、什麼地方被某個重要的觀念感動。我也記得一清二楚。受到索羅斯的激勵，1987 年我在紐約第二十一街和第五大道路口的巴諾書店一口氣看了 50 頁《科學發現的邏輯》，並且瘋狂買下雙手抱得動的所有波普爾著作，擔心以後會缺貨買不到。
原文：It is said that people generally remember the time and geographic condition where they were swept with a governing idea. The religious poet and diplomat Paul Claudel remembers the exact spot of his conversion (or re-conversion) to Catholicism in the Cathedral NotreDame of Paris, near a precise column. Thus I remember exactly the spot at Barnes and Noble on 21st Street and Fifth Avenue where in 1987, inspired by Soros, I read 50 pages of The Logic of Scientific Discovery and feverishly bought all the Popper titles I could get my hands on lest they run out of stock. It was in a sparsely lit side-room that had a distinctive smell of mildew. I remember vividly the thoughts that rushed through my head like a revelation.
探討：原文有幾句沒有翻譯。翻譯如下：
據說當人們被重要的理念打動時，一般都會記得當時的時間和場景。宗教詩人和外交官保羅·克洛岱爾記得他受洗（或者說再次受洗）歸入天主教的確切地點，精確到巴黎聖母院某一根圓柱旁。像這樣，我也清楚記得在 1987 年，就在紐約第二十一街和第五大道路口的巴諾書店，受到索羅斯的鼓舞，我讀了 50 多頁波普爾的《科學發現的邏輯》，然後狂熱地買下雙手抱得動的所有波普爾著作，唯恐以後會缺貨買不到。那是在一間光線稀少的邊房，房間裡有一股與眾不同的黴味。我清楚地記得那些像啟示一樣從我腦海中閃過的想法。
23位置：第七章 P106 最後一段
書中翻譯：
關於歸納法的問題，波普爾有個很重要的答案。沒有人像波普爾那樣，對科學家研究科學的方式有那麼大的影響，但是仍有許多專業哲學家認為他太過天真。他表示，科學並不像表面上看到的那麼嚴肅，世界上只有兩類理論：
第一，經過檢驗並以適當的方法予以駁斥，已知為錯誤的理論，稱之為已被證偽。
第二，尚未得知是否錯誤或者尚未遭否證，但將來有可能被證明為錯誤的理論。
為什麼沒有一個理論正確？因為我們無從得知是否所有的天鵝皆為白色。其中使用的檢驗機制可能有誤，但是我們仍舊可以提出這樣的陳述：世界上有黑天鵝。理論無法被驗證，只能暫時被人接受。以棒球教練貝拉的話來說，過去的資料裡面有很多好東西，可惜的是它也有壞的一面。落在這兩類理論之外的，就不叫理論。如果一個理論沒有包含一組可以被驗證為錯誤的條件，只能稱之為騙術——否則無法加以駁斥。
原文：
Popper came up with a major answer to the problem of induction (To me he came up with the answer). No man has influenced by the way scientists do science more than Sir Karl - In spite of the fact that many of his fellow professional philosophers find him quite naive (to his credit, in my opinion). Popper's idea is that science is not to be taken as seriously as it sounds (Popper when meeing Einstein did not take him as the demigod he thought he was). There are only two types of theories:
Theories that are known to be wrong, as they were tested and adequately rejected (he calls them falsified).Theories that have not yet been known to be wrong, not falsified yet, but are exposed to be proved wrong.Why is a theory never right? Because we will never know if all the swans are white (Popper borrowed the Kantian idea of the flaws in our mechanisms of perception). The testing mechanism may be faulty. However, the statement that there is a black swan is possible to make. A theory cannot be verified. To paraphrase baseball coach Yogi Berra again, past data has a lot of good in it, but it is the bad side that is bad. It can only be provisionally accepted. A theory that falls outside of there two categories is not a theory. A theory that does not present a set of conditions under which it would be considered wrong would be termed charlatanism - they would be impossible to reject otherwise.
探討：
關於歸納法的問題，波普爾找到了一個重要的答案（對我來說，他找到了真正的答案）。沒有人比波普爾在科學家們的研究方法上更有影響力——儘管波普爾的很多專業哲學家同儕們認為他太過天真（在我看來，這是值得稱讚的）。波普爾認為，科學並沒有像聽上去的那麼嚴肅（波普爾在會見愛因斯坦時並沒有把他當作半神一樣的人物，雖然愛因斯坦自己這樣認為）。世界上只有兩種理論：
眾所周知是錯誤的理論，這些理論經過檢驗並被完全拒絕（他稱其為「被證偽的」）；還沒有被廣泛認為是錯誤的理論，這些理論尚未被證偽，但面臨被證明是錯誤的。為什麼一個理論不可能是「正確的」？因為我們永遠無法知道是否所有的天鵝都是白色的（波普爾借用了康德哲學中人類感知機制缺陷的概念）。判斷「是否所有的天鵝都是白色的」這一驗證機制可能是有缺陷的。然而，「存在黑天鵝」這種說法卻可以存在（並驗證）。一個理論無法「被證實」。再次套用棒球教練約吉·貝拉的話，「（棒球隊員的）歷史數據有很多好球記錄，但壞球記錄才是真正糟糕的。」一個理論只能被暫時接受。那些不屬於這兩類的理論並不是理論。如果一個理論無法在某些條件下被證明是錯誤的，這種理論只能稱之為「忽悠」——也就是說它們無法被證偽。
24位置：第七章 P108 第一段
書中翻譯：在他看來，在處理已知的事物和未知的事物時，知識和發現並沒有多大的用處，我覺得這一點對交易員來說很重要。
原文：Sir Karl feared that some type of knowledge did not increase with information - but which type we could not ascertain. The reason I feel that he is important for us traders is because to him the matter of knowledge and discovery is not so much in dealing with what we know, as in dealing with we do not know.
探討：波普爾擔心某些知識不會隨著信息的增加而增加，但我們無法確定是哪一類知識。我之所以覺得波普爾對我們交易員很重要，是因為對他來說，知識和發現的作用與其說是處理我們所知道的，不如說是處理我們所不知道的。
25位置：第七章 P110 第二段
書中翻譯：我不談言行不一的問題，只談基因上有趣的事情：我們喜歡表達合乎邏輯且理性的觀念，但不見得樂在其中。說來奇怪，這件事直到最近才被人發現。我們還會談到人的基因生來不理性且行為上不理性。
原文：I will refrain from commonplace discourse about the divorce between those who have ideas and those who carry them in practice, except to bring out the interesting genetics problems; we like to emit logical and rational ideas but we do not necessarily enjoythis execution. Strange as it sounds, this point has only been discovered very recently (we will see that we are not genetically fit to be rational and act rationally; we are merely fit for the maximum probability of transmitting our genes in some given unsophisticated environment).
探討：感覺翻譯的人翻譯到現在已經開始崩潰了，這種翻譯接近惡搞了。原文應該翻譯為：
我會避免那些關於思想者和這些思想的實踐者分裂的平庸論調，除非能夠提出有趣的遺傳學問題；我們喜歡提出邏輯和理性的想法，但我們不一定喜歡實踐它。奇怪的是，這一點最近才被發現（我們將會看到我們並非天生就是理性的，並且能夠理性行事；我們只能夠在某些給定的簡單環境中最大概率的把基因傳給下一代）。
26位置：第八章 P118 標題
書中翻譯：太多「下一個富翁」
原文：TOO MANY MILLIONAIRES NEXT DOOR
探討：應該翻譯為到處是「鄰家的百萬富翁」。
27位置：第八章 P119 最後一段最後
書中翻譯：遺漏，沒有翻譯
原文：Their children's private school harbors the second set of children of corporate raiders, from their trophy wives - perhaps even the third set, if one takes into account the age discrepancy and the model-like features of the other mothers. By comparison, Marc's wife Janet, like him, presents a homely country-home-with-a-rose-garden type of appearance.
探討：他們孩子的私立學校接納了第二批「鳳凰男」的孩子（從他們的「戰利品」——他們的妻子——那裡）。如果考慮到這些人妻和其他母親在年齡上的差距以及其他媽媽模特般的外貌，這些孩子甚至可能是第三批。相比之下，馬克的妻子珍妮特和他一樣，呈現出一種樸素的田園風格。
28位置：第八章 P123 第一個標題和第二個標題
書中翻譯：贏家的能見度；表現最好的最容易被看見
原文：Visibility Winners；It's a Bull Market
探討：看得見的贏家；現在是牛市。
29位置：第十一章 P160 倒數第二段
書中翻譯：無
原文：In spite of economists' envy of physicists, physic is an inherently positive science while economics, particularly microeconomics and financial economics, is predominantly a normative one.
探討：儘管經濟學家羨慕物理學家，但物理學本質上是一門實證科學，而經濟學，尤其是微觀經濟學和金融經濟學，很明顯是一門規範經濟學。
30位置：第十一章 P166 第二段
書中翻譯：……但是其中也包括一大堆好發議論之士，把長篇大論的理論濃縮在幾分鐘內表示。
原文：but it also allowed a collection of extrovert practitioners long on theories to voice them in a few minutes of television time.
探討：核心是 long on sth，應該翻譯為「善於」、「長期從事」，而不是「長篇大論」。翻譯為：但它也讓一批長期從事理論研究的外向型從業者在幾分鐘的節目時長裡發表自己的觀點。
31
位置：第十一章 P169 第二段
書中翻譯：有句話說：「若後者發生，必然是前者的結果」。
原文：Post hoc ergo propter hoc (it is the reason because it came after).
探討：本句雖然翻譯的不算錯，但翻譯的太複雜了。這句話本身是拉丁文，對應中文是有普適的翻譯方法的。應該翻譯為：因果關係中常見的是「後此謬誤」，或者說「在此之後，因而必然由此造成（拉丁文：post hoc ergo propter hoc）」，即如果 A 事件先於 B 事件發生，A 事件則是 B 事件的原因。
32位置：第十一章 P170 最後一段標題
書中翻譯：我們不了解信賴水準
原文：we do not understand confidence levels
探討：confidence levels 是指置信水平，為什麼這種名詞都會翻譯錯誤？同樣下一段中這個名詞翻譯也是錯誤的。
33位置：第三部分序言 P178 倒數第二段
書中翻譯：書中翻譯遺漏了一段。
原文：I had this idea of stripping people from language while, on a trip, I listened (while brutally jetlagged) to a speech in Cantonese, a language I do not understand, without the benefit of translation. Since I had no possible clue about his subject, the animated orator lost a large share of his dignity. The idea came to me that perhaps I could use a genetic bias, here prejudice, to offset another genetic bias, our predisposition to take information seriously. It seems to work.
探討：這段可能涉及廣東人，所以就跳過了。但是內容還是蠻重要的。翻譯如下：在一次旅行中，我在沒有翻譯的幫助下，（忍受著嚴重的時差）聽了一場廣東話（一種我不太懂的語言）演講，這讓我產生了上面將人和語言分離的想法。由於我對他談論的內容一無所知，這位活躍的演說家有點體面掃地。我突然想到，也許我可以利用遺傳傾向，這裡是偏見，來抵消另一種遺傳傾向——我們過於看重信息的傾向。這似乎很管用。
34位置：第三部分序言 P178 最後一段
書中翻譯：本篇是為本書作結，將說明在面對不確定性是，人的本性為何。
原文：This part, the conclusion of this book, presents the human aspect of dealing with uncertainty.
探討：這部分是本書的結論，介紹了處理不確定性時的人為手段。
35位置：第十二章 P179 第二段
書中翻譯：書中漏翻。
原文：The bareness was not ideological; it was simply because I never managed to enter a furniture store, as I would eventually stop at a bookstore along the way and haul bags of books instead. As can be expected, the kitchen was devoid of any form of food and utensils, save for a defective expresso machine, as I learned to cook only very recently (even then ...).
探討：這些文字應該接在「除以別無他物的公寓裡」後面，譯者將下一段話（計程車的事情）直接接在後面了，不知道怎麼想的。翻譯如下：然而這種空蕩並非思想上的。這只是因為我從來沒有真正進入過家具店，因為我每次去家具店，都會在路上的一家書店停下來，最後拎回來幾袋書。也可以想到，我的廚房裡沒有任何形式的食物和用具，除了一臺有缺陷的咖啡機，因為我最近才學會做飯（即便如此……）。
36位置：第十二章 P179 第二段
書中翻譯：書中漏翻
原文：Cab drivers in New York City are known to be rather untamed and universally unfamiliar with the geography of the place, but, on occasion, one can find a cab driver who can both be unacquainted with the city and skeptic of the universality of the laws of arithmetic.
探討：這些文字應該接在「在公園大道和五十三街的路口下車」後面，翻譯如下：眾所周知，紐約市的計程車司機天生對紐約的大部分地理環境不熟悉，但偶爾，你也可以找到那種既不熟悉紐約市，也對算術定律的普遍性持懷疑態度（譯者註：就是數數都不太會的意思，比如 53 街道往南走 1 個街道是第幾街道）的計程車司機。