Samenvatting

Although Corona is a very nasty virus, we can learn from the global imbalance it causes. The "official" opinions are raised above any reasonable and unreasonable doubt, which is dangerous, because unexpected events, such as the new Coronavirus, always lack knowledge at first. By accepting assumptions as 'facts ' too quickly, much-needed reflection - the ideation phase - is put aside. Maths professor Nassim Taleb classifies events with respect to predictability into four quadrants, from quadrant 1, Mediocristan, where life is simple, forecasting is safe because models work, to quadrant 4, or Extremistan (unpredictable, domain controlled by black swans). The successes of data science (AI, machine learning, etc.) concern the first quadrant, but do not apply to the fourth quadrant, where, according to Taleb, they wrongly give a sense of security and predictability. . In Extremistan, models do not apply, neither scientific nor conspiracy models!