The key to learning is feedback. It is nearly impossible to learn anything without it.

And knowing what happens on average is a good place to start. By so doing, we insulate ourselves from the tendency to build our thinking - our daily decisions, our laws, our governance - on exceptions and anomalies rather than on reality

The data don't lie: a Chicago street prostitute is more likely to have sex with a cop than to be arrested by one.

An incentive is a bullet, a key: an often tiny object with astonishing power to change a situation

The conventional wisdom is often wrong.

In the United States especially, politics and economics don’t mix well. Politicians have all sorts of reasons to pass all sorts of laws that, as well-meaning as they may be, fail to account for the way real people respond to real-world incentives.

I do think that the standard media is controlled by the conventional wisdom about global warming. We've come to believe - from reading a lot of articles and talking to a lot of scientists - that there's another side to be heard.