Preparing for unpredictability: the Black Swans, 2015

01/12/2015

International reflection on unknown or extremely unlikely but major impact hazards, the famous "black swans", on the difficulties of predicting extreme events because of their rarity is still in its infancy. Nassim Nicholas Taleb's book "Black Swans: The Power of the Unpredictable" provocatively launched the debate on the use of statistics on rare events and the difficulties of predicting uncertainty based on past data. In the logical continuation of René Thom's work (disaster theory) or research on fractious or chaotic phenomena, a new generation of work on prospective methods and scenario development is seeking to find an additional theoretical basis for addressing "black swans".