Concept · Cognitive Bias: Risk perception biases
Black swan blindness
Origin: Taleb, 2007
Biological Parallel
Island species evolve without predators for millions of years, then a single invasive predator arrives and causes extinction. Black swan blindness: failing to anticipate unprecedented events outside experiential range. Dodos never encountered mammalian predators—their evolutionary history provided no template for rats or humans. The mechanism: natural selection optimizes for experienced threats, not theoretical ones. When environments are stable for epochs, adaptation to rare catastrophes is selected against. History blinds to the unprecedented.