Think Like a Freak

by Steven D. Levitt

Incentives are the cornerstone of modern life. And understanding them—or, often, deciphering them—is the key to understanding a problem, and how it might be solved.

Knowing what to measure, and how to measure it, can make a complicated world less so.

The conventional wisdom is often wrong.

Correlation does not equal causality.

One reason is that it’s easy to let your biases—political, intellectual, or otherwise—color your view of the world. A growing body of research suggests that even the smartest people tend to seek out evidence that confirms what they already think, rather than new information that would give them a more robust view of reality.

Another barrier to thinking like a Freak is that most people are too busy to rethink the way they think—or to even spend much time thinking at all.

If the consequences of pretending to know can be so damaging, why do people keep doing it? That’s easy: in most cases, the cost of saying “I don’t know” is higher than the cost of being wrong—at least for the individual.

Every time we pretend to know something, we are doing the same: protecting our own reputation rather than promoting the collective good.

But when it comes to solving problems, one of the best ways to start is by putting away your moral compass.

When you are consumed with the rightness or wrongness of a given issue—whether it’s fracking or gun control or genetically engineered food—it’s easy to lose track of what the issue actually is. A moral compass can convince you that all the answers are obvious (even when they’re not); that there is a bright line between right and wrong (when often there isn’t); and, worst, that you are certain you already know everything you need to know about a subject so you stop trying to learn more.

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