Book: Think Like a Freak

Author

Stephen J. Dubner und Steven Levitt

Summary

A collection of stories that illustrate how to think more productively, creatively, and rationally.

Takeaways

People have difficulties thinking rationally. They have biases that leads them to seek evidence that confirms what they already think, or are tempted to adopt views of friends, families, and colleagues.

“Thinking like a freak” means to get comfortable with admiting to not know the answer to a question. A “freak” re-defines the problem to answer the right questions, identifies the root cause, and thinks small to avoid intractable problems.

Quotes

“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."

“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."

“Thinking like a Freak may sometimes sound like an exercise in using clever means to get exactly what you want, and there’s nothing wrong with that. But if there is one thing we’ve learned from a lifetime of designing and analyzing incentives, the best way to get what you want is to treat other people with decency."