Quotes by Stephen J. Dubner - Page 1

The Immaculate Reception became the Zapruder Film of sports.
Stephen J. Dubner / Journalist
Sports
Film
Reception
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I'm a writer. I've been a journalist for my whole adult life.
Stephen J. Dubner / Journalist
Adult Life
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The world is complicated. But does every problem require a complicated solution?
Stephen J. Dubner / Journalist
Complicated
Problem
Require
Solution
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While in the middle of writing a book, I have a hard time reading other books for pleasure.
Stephen J. Dubner / Journalist
Hard Time
Time Reading
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If I make the mistake of eating breakfast, I want to go back to bed and/or eat again immediately.
Stephen J. Dubner / Journalist
Breakfast
Immediately
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If we treated politics like more of a profession, like it should be, we would all be a lot better off.
Stephen J. Dubner / Journalist
Better Off
Profession
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I was a math and science kid in school, but I ended up going the route of writing and music in college.
Stephen J. Dubner / Journalist
Math
Math And Science
Route
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If the day's writing has been particularly good or particularly bad, a glass of scotch will be involved.
Stephen J. Dubner / Journalist
Scotch
Good Day Bad
Glass
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That's what's good about the digital revolution is it makes information asymmetry much harder to maintain.
Stephen J. Dubner / Journalist
Digital
Revolution
Maintain
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We've been conditioned to think that quitting is a failure, a form of failure. How do we know that that's true?
Stephen J. Dubner / Journalist
Failure
Quitting
Conditioned
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Think small. Don't pretend you know the answers. Experiment; get feedback. These are all the premises of 'Think Like a Freak,' really.
Stephen J. Dubner / Journalist
Feedback
Freak
Premises
Pretend
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I like to bring my kids to the voting booth to show them how it works. I'll let them draw their own conclusions as to how worthwhile it is.
Stephen J. Dubner / Journalist
Voting
Worthwhile
Booth
Conclusions
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What would you rather do? Fix a small problem well or answer a small problem well or flail around at the big ones and pay a lot of lip service?
Stephen J. Dubner / Journalist
Lip Service
Big Ones
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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 / Journalist
Surprising
Choosing
Define
Era
Marked
Ours
Rampant
Redefine
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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 / Journalist
Doctors
Maintaining
Procedures
Wellness
Wrong Things
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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 / Journalist
Data
Economist
Summon
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We're surrounded by big problems and people who have been attacking the same big problems for years and years and years and years, and often they're not getting anywhere.
Stephen J. Dubner / Journalist
Attacking
Big Problems
Surrounded
Years And Years
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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 / Journalist
Instinct
Turns
Unwilling
Admit
Amazing People Know
Charge
Gut
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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 / Journalist
Affiliation
Claims
Data
Membership
Slippery
Statistics
Entirely
Gather
Reliable
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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 / Journalist
Deliberate
Driver
Raw
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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 / Journalist
Good Believe I Believe
Good Believe People
Cooperate
Incentive
Steal
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In at least one way we are atypical bloggers. That’s because we just keep on posting. The typical blogger, like most people who go on diets and budgets, quits after a few months, weeks, or in many cases, days.
Stephen J. Dubner / Journalist
Funny
People
Thoughtful
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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 / Journalist
Becoming
Cancer
Despite
Gains
Preventing
Prominent
General
Forms
Gotten
Increasingly
Topic
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What I think of as 'freakonomics' is mostly storytelling around an idea - not a theme but an idea. I like ideas much more than themes. Themes are boring. Themes are, 'Wool is back,' but ideas are, 'Why is wool back?'
Stephen J. Dubner / Journalist
Wool
Themes
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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 / Journalist
Abortion
Fewer
Mechanism
Rate
Unintended Consequences
Crime Rate
Drives
Strangest
Unintended
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I grew up in - I personally grew up in a gun culture. I grew up in upstate New York where most families had guns for hunting, target practice, whatever. The vast majority of people I knew never used their guns for any crime.
Stephen J. Dubner / Journalist
Gun
Hunting
Target
Upstate New York
Guns
Vast
Upstate
Vast Majority
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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 / Journalist
Beef
Carbon
Consuming
Cows
Footprint
Transportation
Less
Cut
Far
Worse
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Religion is a way to make order from chaos, and I think economics is not dissimilar. In religion and in economics, you're trying to figure out the way we perceive the world and move through it, and that's what I like to learn.
Stephen J. Dubner / Journalist
Chaos
Perceive
Dissimilar
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If we want politics to be the kind of arena where you're attracting and encouraging really competent people who do a job well because that's what they're supposed to do, then you have to pay them a salary that's commensurate with that.
Stephen J. Dubner / Journalist
Encouraging
Arena
Competent
Salary
Politics Where People
Attracting
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Spielberg may have intended 'Schindler's List' as the opposite of entertainment, but the film grossed $321 million and engaged audiences as only entertainment can, coaxing them to cry and shudder, leaving their hearts more heavy than broken.
Stephen J. Dubner / Journalist
Broken
Cry
Engaged
Heavy
Leaving
Audiences
Hearts
Intended
List
Shudder
Spielberg
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When certain people have certain beliefs, they can be unyielding, and that's really what faith is. There's a large place in the world for faith, but when it comes to a scientific, political, and economic issue, dogma is not a very good place to start.
Stephen J. Dubner / Journalist
Dogma
Good Place
Beliefs
Scientific
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Of all the things that the digital revolution has produced, once of the coolest, simplest ones is you can now contact people who write books that you read. You used to have to write a letter to the publisher and hope they passed it along, which they never did.
Stephen J. Dubner / Journalist
Contact
Digital
Revolution
Simplest
Hope People Never
Coolest
Letter
Passed
Produced
Publisher
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We took our Catholicism very seriously. We never missed Mass; our father was a lector, and both our parents taught catechism. At 3 in the afternoon on Good Friday, we gathered in the living room for 10 minutes of silence in front of a painting of the Crucifixion.
Stephen J. Dubner / Journalist
Afternoon
Catholicism
Crucifixion
Friday
Good Friday
Living Room
Mass
Our Father
Silence
Gathered
Missed
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Deflategate. I mean it's kind of idiotic in one way. On the other hand, look how totally obsessed we are with the fact that the New England Patriots may have taken, I don't know, a half-pound or a pound square inch of air pressure out of the footballs. We love it.
Stephen J. Dubner / Journalist
Air
England
Idiotic
New England
Obsessed
Pressure
Totally
Inch
Patriots
Pound
Square
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A lot of people are scared of experimentation because they think you have to be scientists, or they're also scared of it because it means that you have to admit that you don't know the answer. A lot of people like to assume they know the solution to a problem when they don't.
Stephen J. Dubner / Journalist
Experimentation
Admit
Assume
Solution
Scientists
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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 / Journalist
Failing
Predict
Describe
Dynamic
Economists
Hugely
Movements
Organ
Simultaneously
Surgeon
Transplant
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A strange thing happens when Spielberg discusses his own work. His degree of self-criticism seems a direct reflection of each film's box-office performance. You will not catch him complaining that the audience 'didn't get' a film; if it didn't do well, it generally didn't deserve to.
Stephen J. Dubner / Journalist
Complaining
Deserve
Reflection
Catch
Spielberg
Strange Thing
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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 / Journalist
Both Sides
Feel Good
Feels
Good Laugh
Right Thing
Sides
Sincere
Everyone Else
Exuberant
Loves
Grown-Up
Himself
Laugh
Reverent
Spielberg
Steven
Steven Spielberg
The Right Thing
Unless
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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 / Journalist
Income
Optional
Salary
Susceptible
Waiter
Tips
Bulk
Constitute
Good Idea
Whims
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If the world gets a lot hotter in a hurry and the primary aim is to cool it down, then the current plan of carbon mitigation will almost certainly not be effective. It'll be too little, too late, and too optimistic - in large part because the atmospheric half-life of CO2 is roughly 100 years.
Stephen J. Dubner / Journalist
Optimistic
Cool
Aim
Carbon
Co2
Half Life
Hotter
Too Late
Almost
Atmospheric
Certainly
Current
Effective
Gets
Hurry
Large
Large Part
Plan
Primary
Roughly
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'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 / Journalist
Economist
Profile
Psychology
Editor
Magazine
No Interest
Steve
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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 / Journalist
Family
Biased
Different
Different Ways
Raised
Everybody
Family World Your
Try
Back
Nobody
Same
Exactly
Exactly The Same
Figure
Holding
Politically
Right
Problems
Solving
Thinks
Wants
Ways
Where
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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 / Journalist
Criminals
Data
Gun
Ignored
Owners
Protect
Abide
Guns
Favor
Law-Abiding
Lumped
Obeyed
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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 / Journalist
Attention
Crime
Disaster
Etc
Natural
Natural Disaster
Noisy
Norm
Problem
Reports
Catch
Itself
Error
Event
Fundamental
Market
Stock
Stock Market
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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 / Journalist
Boot Camp
Brothers And Sisters
Catholicism
Convinced
Crash
Glee
Graduates
Mary
Notorious
Boot
Sisters
Camp
Oldest
Perverse
Protestant
Walked
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Set aside a half hour or an hour to rethink the way you make decisions, the habits you have, the biases you may have. And if you think of things, if you come with a little bit of a blank slate and be willing to acknowledge what you don't know, and you'd be willing to think like a child, I think it'll help not only individuals but society at large.
Stephen J. Dubner / Journalist
Society
Acknowledge
Blank
Half
Little Bit
May
Slate
Willing
Decisions
Child
Aside
Bit
Biases
Blank Slate
Set
Habits
Help
Hour
Individuals
Large
Rethink
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