Black Swans

Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence.

In his book; The Black Swan, Nassim Nicholas Taleb speaks about, well, Black Swans.

They are the highly improbable and unpredicted events that often shape the world as we perceive it.

The story states that it was once believed that swans could only be white - that it was not possible for a swan to be black. 

This was until 1697 when Dutch navigator, Willem de Vlamingh stumbled upon black swans on his expedition in Western Australia.

This is a now well-known example which illustrates the fallacy of thinking we can predict future events.

An absence of evidence that black swans exist, is not equivalent to evidence that they do not exist.

We are currently living in the midst of a Black Swan event - what will come next is difficult to predict.

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