The Importance of Being Stochastic

Here is a bunch of links related to our natural tendency to misinterpret randomness as if it's an intentional pattern:

• Most of us are pretty bad at statistical reasoning.
• Here's a review of a decent book (The Drunkard's Walk: How Randomness Rules Our Lives) on this topic.
• What was that infinite monkey typewriter thing we were talking about in class? Someone recently tried it! Well, sort of.
• A radio show I love recently devoted an entire episode to probability.
  
• Another radio show I love ran a great 2-part series on the screening for diseases called "You Are Pre-Diseased".
• What's up with that recent recommendation that routine screenings for breast cancer should wait until your 50s rather than 40s? Math helps explain it.