Includes bibliographical references (p. [331]-358) and index.

Pt. 1. Umberto Eco's antilibrary, or how we seek validation -- Ch. 1. The apprenticeship of an empirical skeptic -- Ch. 2. Yevgenia's black swan -- Ch. 3. The speculator and the prostitute -- Ch. 4. One thousand and one days, or how not to be a sucker -- Ch. 5. Confirmation shmonfirmation! -- Ch. 6. The narrative fallacy -- Ch. 7. Living in the antechamber of hope -- Ch. 8. Glacomo Casanova's unfailing luck : the problem of silent evidence -- Ch. 9. The ludic fallacy, or the uncertainty of the nerd -- Pt. 2. We just can't predict -- Ch. 10. The scandal of prediction -- Ch. 11. How to look for bird poop -- Ch. 12. Epistemocracy, a dream -- Ch. 13. Appelles the painter, or what do you do if you cannot predict? -- Pt. 3. Those gray swans of Extremistan -- Ch. 14. From Mediocristan to Extremistan, and back -- Ch. 15. The bell curve, that great intellectual fraud -- Ch. 16. The aesthetics of randomness -- Ch. 17. Locke's madmen, or bell curves in the wrong places -- Ch. 18. The uncertainty of the phony -- Pt. 4. The end -- Ch. 19. Half and half, or how to get even with the black swan -- Epilogue : Yevgenia's white swans.