Likewise, if I asked you how many cases of lung cancer are likely to take place in the country, you would supply some number, say half a million. Now, if instead I asked you how many cases of lung cancer are likely to take place because of smoking, odds are that you would give me a much higher number (I would guess more than twice as high). Adding the because makes these matters far more plausible, and far more likely. Cancer from smoking seems more likely than cancer without a cause attached to it—an unspecified cause means no cause at all. I return to the example of E. M. Forster’s plot from earlier in this chapter, but seen from the standpoint of probability. Which of these two statements seems more likely? Joey seemed happily married. He killed his wife. Joey seemed happily married. He killed his wife to get her inheritance. Clearly the second statement seems more likely at first blush, which is a pure mistake of logic, since the first, being broader, can accommodate more causes, such as he killed his wife because he went mad, because she cheated with both the postman and the ski instructor, because he entered a state of delusion and mistook her for a financial forecaster. Taleb, Nassim. The Black Swan (p. 76). Penguin Books Ltd. Kindle Edition.