Quotes About Research

Dr. Martin Seligman in his excellent book, Flourish, calls the practice of instantly finding the benefit in adversity "post-traumatic growth," and he backs it up with rather thrilling and extensive research studies. Our society and media are fixated on post-traumatic stress because of the strong bias toward (and financial interest in) tragedy.

I think the ideal number of participants for each round of do-it-yourself testing is three.

The results of a 1995 study conducted by Harvard Medical School indicated that alcoholics have a better chance of quitting drinking if they don't attend AA than if they do. Americans seldom hear about such results, in part because AA and its sister organizations have actively opposed independent research that could test their programs' effectiveness.

New study reveals men like to cuddle. Another study reveals men will say anything to get into bed with a woman.

Journalists need experts as badly as experts need journalists.

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.

It's much better to ask small questions than big ones.

Married people, for instance, are demonstrably happier than single people; does this mean that marriage causes happiness? Not necessarily. The data suggest that happy people are more likely to get married in the first place.

that number is 58 percent

Steven D. Levitt

Roland G. Fryer Jr., while discussing his names research on a radio show, took a call from a black woman who was upset with the name just given to her baby niece. It was pronounced shuh-TEED but was in fact spelled "Shithead."*

Steven D. Levitt

Steven D. Levitt

Peter Leeson, whose research has covered topics like Gypsy law and pirate economics, did just that.

Steven D. Levitt

La prueba de todo conocimiento es el experimento —dijo—. El experimento es el único juez de la "verdad" científica». La

Correlation does not equal causality.

Steven D. Levitt

As scientists like to say: The plural of anecdote is not data.)

The next time you run into a question that you can only pretend to answer, go ahead and say "I don't know"—and then follow up, certainly, with "but maybe I can find out." And work as hard as you can to do that.

Steven D. Levitt

Married people, for instance, are demonstrably happier than single people; does this mean that marriage causes happiness? Not necessarily. The data suggest that happy people are more likely to get married in the first place. As one researcher memorably put it, "If you're grumpy, who the hell wants to marry you?

Steven D. Levitt

Por razones que Auvert y otros científicos no comprenden del todo, se descubrió que la circuncisión reduce el riesgo de transmisión del VIH hasta en un 60 por ciento en los hombres heterosexuales.