Seminars 2009 — Abstracts

Friday, May 8

Speaker: Moshe Sniedovich, Melbourne

Title: Black Swans, Modern Nostradamuses, Voodoo Decision Theories, Info-Gaps, and the Science of Decision-Making in the Face of Severe Uncertainty

Abstract: The current global financial crisis and Nassim Taleb's recent popular books on randomness and rare events are timely reminders of the tremendous methodological and practical difficulties associated with decision-making in the fact of severe uncertainty. In this presentation I examine how classical decision theory and modern voodoo decision theories attempt to cope with this very challenging task. This includes an Australian perspective drawn from such areas as finance, applied ecology and bio-security.