Like the graduates of some notorious boot camp, my brothers and sisters and I look back with a sort of perverse glee at the rigors of our Catholicism. My oldest sister, Mary, was so convinced of the church’s omnipotence that when she walked into a Protestant church with some high-school friends, she was sure its walls would crash down on her head. Stephen J. Dubner Read Quote
The data are what matter in economics, and the more ruthlessness that an economist can summon to make sense of the data, the more useful his findings will be. Stephen J. Dubner Read Quote
People are being incentivized for the wrong things. We’ve heard about a lot – doctors for procedures rather than creating wellness or maintaining wellness. Stephen J. Dubner Read Quote
Freakonomics’ began with a ‘N.Y. Times Magazine’ profile I wrote about Steve Levitt. I was working on a book about ‘the psychology of money,’ and since Levitt’s an economist, my editor thought I’d be the guy to write about him. Fact is that Levitt has almost no interest in either psychology or money. Stephen J. Dubner Read Quote
Cancer is, in general, an increasingly important topic, in part because we’ve gotten so good at preventing other forms of death that cancer, despite some gains made against it, is becoming even more prominent. Stephen J. Dubner Read Quote
It’s amazing how unwilling most people are to admit they don’t know the answer to a question or a problem and instead charge forward on a ‘gut instinct’ that turns out to be crap. Stephen J. Dubner Read Quote
I think the most fundamental error we make is mistaking a noisy, anomalous event for the norm. This happens all the time – in the stock market, in reports of crime and natural disaster, etc. The fact is that big, noisy, anomalous events catch our attention because they’re anomalous, which isn’t a problem in and of itself. Stephen J. Dubner Read Quote
What’s really the driver of talent is not raw ability. It’s not even just experience. It’s what’s called ‘deliberate practice,’ which is to say, if you do something a lot, you get really good at it. Stephen J. Dubner Read Quote
Cows and other ruminants are worse polluters than all of the transportation in the world, so all of us who try to cut down our carbon footprint by lessening our transportation would do far better by just consuming less beef. Stephen J. Dubner Read Quote
