A recent economic analysis concluded that patients with metastatic cancer value their treatments significantly more than regulators recognize, with many expensive new therapies looking like veritable bargains to most patients…(Read the rest and view comments at Critical Decisions)
Is Prostate Cancer Screening Truly Harmful?
Dr. Timothy Wilt, a member of the United States Preventive Services Task Force, stood in front of the American Urological Association audience and explained why the task force could not recommend that men undergo routine PSA screening. At most, he explained, the test had been shown to benefit one out of 1000 men…(Read the rest and view comments at Critical Decisions)
Do Cognitive Biases Improve Our Perceptions?
Those of us who work in behavioral economics love discovering brain farts—cognitive biases and unconscious illusions that highlight the limitations of human nature. We enjoy uncovering hidden sources of irrationality — mental shortcuts that send people down the wrong paths…(Read the rest and view comments at Critical Decisions)
The Secrets of Creativity?
The best thing about bad art is that it makes fodder for great reviews. Take the opening line of Mina Strohminger’s review of Colin McGee’s “The Meaning of Disgust”: “In disgust research,” she writes in The Journal of Aesthetics and Critical Art, “there is shit, and then there is bullshit.”
Guess which category she thinks McGee’s book falls under?
(Read the rest and view comments at Scientocracy)
White Castle Wars?
When New Jersey decided to hike its minimum wage by some 20 percent in 1991, David Card and Alan Krueger recognized a tremendous opportunity to test how the minimum wage affects employment…(Read the rest and view comments at Scientocracy)
Is the Minimum Wage Bad for Teenagers?
Things were flush in New Jersey. The Reagan presidency had ended, with national unemployment dropping from a high of almost 11 percent in the President’s first term to just about 5 percent as he left office….(Read the rest and view comments at Scientocracy)
A 40,000 Foot View of Obamacare
“How can the government make us buy health insurance? What gives them that right?”
Sitting on my left while our airplane raced above the clouds, Elizabeth was clearly upset about Obamacare. She wondered why the bill had to be so long, and why Obama would endorse a plan that doubled her health insurance costs. But nothing vexed her more than the individual mandate…(Read the rest and view comments at Scientocracy)
Why I Write Books
“I just finished reading your book You’re Stronger than You Think and felt compelled to write you. I found it tremendously enriching from both a personal and professional point of view.”
That was the opening sentence from a recent e-mail I received from a complete stranger. Truth be told, it is impossible to get too many e-mails like this!
The person who sent the e-mail went on to say: “I want to congratulate you on expressing such deep, important matters in an entertaining and simple way. Your book helped strengthen many of my beliefs and shed light on concrete ways in which we can life fulfilled lives. Please know that your work truly makes a difference and has been appreciated tremendously.”
I did not sell nearly as many copies of this book as I hoped to. I wanted my ideas to get out to more people. Many days, in fact, I feel a touch of sadness that the book hasn’t reached more people. But all that sadness goes away when I receive e-mails like this. This is why I write books. This is why I will keep on writing books, until the day I die.