In learning how people make decisions, it’s important to ask good questions. One way is to examine conventional wisdom, the “simple, convenient, comfortable, and comforting” ideas we prefer, and inspect it for “the contrails of sloppy or self-interested thinking” (86).

During the 1980s, homeless advocate Mitch Snyder claimed that 3 million Americans were homeless and that 45 die each second. People accepted these numbers until someone pointed out that such a death rate would lead to 1.4 billion deaths. Snyder admitted he’d made up the number of homeless people because the press hounded him for statistics.

The media needs shocking reports to attract readers; politicians and advocates need stunning numbers to galvanize their followers. Pundits championed the idea that Iraq in 2003 possessed major weapons of mass destruction; women’s rights leaders argued that one in three American women is assaulted or raped (it’s one in eight); many diseases are presented as worse than they are and thereby get more research funding. One of America’s most violent cities, Atlanta, hid police crime reports to win the right to host the 1996 Olympic Games, and in 2002 the city was still hiding crime reports, 22,000 in that year alone.

Meanwhile, police in many cities, fighting an upsurge in crime connected to the

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