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The black swan theory or theory of black swan events is a metaphor that describes an event that comes as a surprise, has a major effect, and is often inappropriately rationalized after the fact with the benefit of hindsight. The term is based on an ancient saying that presumed black swans did not exist – a saying that became reinterpreted to teach a different lesson after the first European encounter with them.[1] The theory was developed by Nassim Nicholas Taleb, starting in 2001, to explain: The disproportionate role of high-profile, hard-to-predict, and rare events that are beyond the realm of normal expectations in history, science, finance, and technology. The non-computability of the probability of consequential rare events using scientific methods (owing to the very nature of small probabilities). The psychological biases that blind people, both individually and collectively, to uncertainty and a rare event's massive role in historical affairs. Taleb's "black swan theory" refers only to unexpected events of large magnitude and consequence and their dominant role in history. Such events, considered extreme outliers, collectively play vastly larger roles than regular occurrences.[2]:xxi More technically, in the scientific monograph "Silent Risk",[3] Taleb mathematically defines the black swan problem as "stemming from the use of degenerate metaprobability".[3]

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