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Procrustean Bed

Last update: 2026-03-13

Tags: volumen

The Procrustean bed originates from the Greek myth of Procrustes, a giant innkeeper who stretched or amputated travellers’ legs so they would fit perfectly into his iron bed.

Nassim Nicholas Taleb uses this metaphor in Fooled by Randomness (Taleb, 2005) to describe the tendency to force reality to conform to a model rather than constructing a model that accurately reflects reality. When data does not fit a theory, particularly a Gaussian framework, people often trim, reinterpret, or ignore the data instead of questioning the theory.

References

Taleb, N. N. (2005). Fooled by Randomness: The Hidden Role of Chance in Life and in the Markets (Incerto). http://www.librarything.com/work/7533