We’re all biased, right, in many different ways – politically, religiously, ideologically, the way our family raised us – and that’s fine. Nobody wants to live in a world where everybody thinks exactly the same. The key, though, is to try to figure out where your biases are holding you back from solving problems. Stephen J. Dubner Read Quote
As everyone knows, tips constitute the bulk of a waiter’s or waitress’s income. But they are also optional, at least in theory. Does it really seem like a good idea to make someone’s salary so susceptible to customers’ whims on a given day – or whether any customers happen to show up at all? Stephen J. Dubner Read Quote
Most laws that we make to protect people from guns are usually ignored by the criminals and obeyed by the law-abiding people. And so I think that if you had better data, there’d be no one more in favor of it than law abiding gun owners because they don’t want to be smeared and lumped in with the criminals who use guns. Stephen J. Dubner Read Quote
These are the two sides of Steven Spielberg: the reverent grown-up who knows when to say the right thing and the exuberant kid who loves a good laugh. Both sides are sincere, and both are necessary, for Spielberg knows he can’t feel good about himself unless everyone else feels the same way. Stephen J. Dubner Read Quote
When most people think of economists, they think of macro-economists. Macro-economists try to describe or – even harder – predict the movements of a hugely dynamic system. They’re like a transplant surgeon trying to simultaneously transplant every failing organ in someone’s body. Stephen J. Dubner Read Quote
The movement toward choosing religion, rampant as it is, shouldn’t be surprising. Ours is an era marked by the desire to define – or redefine – ourselves. Stephen J. Dubner Read Quote
Statistics on religious affiliation are notoriously slippery: the government isn’t allowed to gather such data, and the membership claims of religious organizations aren’t entirely reliable. Stephen J. Dubner Read Quote
While in the middle of writing a book, I have a hard time reading other books for pleasure. Stephen J. Dubner Read Quote
I believe that people generally want to be what we call good. They want to cooperate with people. They don’t want to steal; they don’t want to cheat. But everybody has a price. Everybody has an incentive. Stephen J. Dubner Read Quote
One of the strangest unintended consequences of abortion, of legalized abortion, was that it drives the crime rate down because what abortion really was, was a mechanism for which fewer unwanted children could be born. Stephen J. Dubner Read Quote
