Best thing I’ve read today
Different disciplines have their own ways of being stupid. I’ve been intrigued by the ways that economists have of being dumb. I thought that this piece by Andrew Gelman was a very cogent discussion of a prototypical case:
Here’s what he’s responding to:
Stephen Dubner quotes Gary Becker as saying:
According to the economic approach, therefore, most (if not
all!) deaths are to some extent “suicides” in the sense that they could
have been postponed if more resources had been invested in prolonging
life.Dubner describes this as making “perfect sense” and as being “so unusual and so valuable.”
