A must-read for anyone who makes business decisions that have a major financial impact.As the recent collapse on Wall Street shows, we are often ill-equipped to deal with uncertainty and risk. Yet every day we base our personal and business plans on uncertainties, whether they be next month's sales, next year's costs, or tomorrow's stock price. In "The Flaw of Averages," Sam Savage-known for his creative exposition of difficult subjects- describes common avoidable mistakes in assessing risk in the face of uncertainty. Along the way, he shows why plans based on average assumptions are wrong, on average, in areas as diverse as healthcare, accounting, the War on Terror, and climate change. In his chapter on Sex and the Central Limit Theorem, he bravely grasps the literary third rail of gender differences.Instead of statistical jargon, Savage presents complex concepts in plain English. In addition, a tightly integrated web site contains numerous animations and simulations to further connect the seat of the reader's intellect to the seat of their pants.The "Flaw of Averages" typically results when someone plugs a single number into a spreadsheet to represent an uncertain future quantity. Savage finishes the book with a discussion of the emerging field of Probability Management, which cures this problem though a new technology that can pack thousands of numbers into a single spreadsheet cell.Praise for "The Flaw of Averages""Statistical uncertainties are pervasive in decisions we make every day in business, government, and our personal lives. Sam Savage's lively and engaging book gives any interested reader the insight and the tools to deal effectively with those uncertainties. I highly recommend "The Flaw of Averages."" --William J. Perry, Former U.S. Secretary of Defense "Enterprise analysis under uncertainty has long been an academic ideal. . . . In this profound and entertaining book, Professor Savage shows how to make all this practical, practicable, and comprehensible." ---Harry Markowitz, Nobel Laureate in Economics

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平均值缺陷

薩姆·薩維奇（(Sam Savage）

斯坦福大學工程學院顧問教授，劍橋大學賈奇商學院研究員，其父為美國著名統計學傢倫納德·吉米·薩維奇(Leonard Jimmie Savage)。作者長期從事與統計學和風險評估相關的工作和研究，根據“決策應基於對不確定的未來更大程度的主觀判斷”的觀點，逐漸發展齣一種風險建模的新方法“概率管理”，並帶領著由Frontline係統公司、甲骨文公司以及SAS軟件研究所等機構組成的社團開發瞭概率分布列（DIST）——這是一種用來儲存概率分布的新型電腦數據類型。作者還自任Probability Management．0rg網站的主席。

作者在許多專業期刊和大眾媒體上發錶過文章，比如《哈佛商業評論》、《投資組閤管理雜誌》、《華盛頓郵報》以及《今日奧姆斯》（ORMSToday）雜誌等。除瞭教書育人和科學研究之外，他還為眾多的企業、機構和政府部門提供谘詢和培訓服務。