David Brooks has a fascinating column out this morning explaining the ways our assumptions and intuition leads us astray. It is filled with interesting examples of how we often rely on crude beliefs that are not backed up by the data, and how the standard narratives are often wrong (reality has a quantitative bias).

Based on research at Duke, Penn and Princeton, the significance of these findings to public policy is overwhelming.

I suggest you go read the column ^[1] before you do anything else this morning.

Source:
Beware Stubby Glasses ^[1]
DAVID BROOKS
NYT, January 10, 2013
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/01/11/opinion/brooks-beware-stubby-glasses.html