Families who live in public housing on the South Side of Chicago are not poor because Bill Gates lives in a big house.

So it is with statistics; no amount of fancy analysis can make up for fundamentally flawed data. Hence the expression “garbage in, garbage out.

A Random Walk Down Wall Street.

The democratic process will always favor small, well-organized groups at the expense of large, diffuse groups.

Two percent who care deeply about something are a more potent political force than the 98 percent who feel the opposite but aren’t motivated enough to do anything about it.

I once interviewed Robert Solow, winner of the 1987 Nobel Prize in Economics and a noted baseball enthusiast. I asked if it bothered him that he received less money for winning the Nobel Prize than Roger Clemens, who was pitching for the Red Sox at the time, earned in a single season. “No,” Solow said. “There are a lot of good economists, but there is only one Roger Clemens.” That is how economists think.

Probability doesn’t make mistakes; people using probability make mistakes.

Here is one of the most important things to remember when doing research that involves regression analysis: Try not to kill anyone. You can even put a little Post-it note on your computer monitor: “Do not kill people with your research.

Why did the chicken cross the road? Because it maximized his utility.

Statistics is like a high-caliber weapon: helpful when used correctly and potentially disastrous in the wrong hands.