Charlie has no clue about (a) statistical inference related issues (b) the philosophical implications of "black swan" on our mode of thinking (c) the evolutionary forces at play and the complexity of the world! etc etc...

At the heart of it, Taleb's thesis echoes the idea that Bob Lucas (UofChicago) introduced. i.e., unanticipated information/policy shocks can be the only agents of change (the "innovation" component in a standard stochastic forward models in say, Rebonato!) Similarly, history is propelled forward only by the unanticipated -- the anticipated is pushed into the corners by vested power interests!