Thomas Sowell
Thomas Sowell
Thomas Sowellis an American economist, social theorist, political philosopher, and author...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionNovelist
Date of Birth30 June 1930
CityGastonia, NC
CountryUnited States of America
smart science thinking
It doesn't matter how smart you are unless you stop and think.
science opposites statistics
The same set of statistics can produce opposite conclusions at different levels of aggregation.
science years variables
Most variables can show either an upward or downward trend, depending on the base year chosen.
science statistics disaster
Any statistics can be extrapolated to the point where they show disaster.
science statistics term
All statements are true, if you are free to redefine their terms.
science differences different
All things are the same except for the differences, and different except for the similarities.
mean science law
The law of diminishing returns means that even the most beneficial prinicple will become harmful if carried far enough.
real science world
You can always create a fraction by putting one variable upstairs and another variable downstairs, but that soes not establish any causal relationship between them, nor does the resulting quotient have any necessary relationship to anything in the real world.
cite liberals
All too often when liberals cite statistics, they forget the statisticians' warning that correlation is not causation.
america children inherent
Do all children have some inherent right to live in America if they have done nothing wrong? If not, then why should the children of illegal immigrants have such a right?
discussed people terms
Immigration laws are the only laws that are discussed in terms of how to help people who break them.
baseball catching changing civilization concrete contain cultures danger disregard edge effective feet field forms ground increases individual inherent land lets people player run sensitive social special strip ultimate various wall warning wider
Cultures contain many cues and inducements to dissuade the individual from approaching ultimate limits, in much the same way that a special warning strip of land around the edge of a baseball field lets a player know that he is about to run into a concrete wall when he is preoccupied with catching the ball. The wider that strip of land and the more sensitive the player is to the changing composition of the ground under his feet as he pursues the ball, the more effective the warning. Romanticizing or lionizing as individualistic those people who disregard social cues and inducements increases the danger of head-on collisions with inherent social limits. Decrying various forms of social disapproval is in effect narrowing the warning strip.
against hopes leaders pinned rather revolution
One of the peculiarities of the American Revolution was that its leaders pinned their hopes on the organization of decision-making units, the structuring of their incentives, and the counterbalancing of the units against one another, rather than on t
dream grandiose hands ideologies imagined nurse people time wars
Most wars are started by well-fed people with time on their hands to dream up half-baked ideologies or grandiose ambitions, and to nurse real or imagined grievances.