Making Sense of Evidence, Markets, and Business

Study: Whole Grain Consumption Lowers Death Risk. That’s the title of an article in HCP Live, a clinical news and information portal for doctors. It’s consistent with what everyone tells you about the benefits of whole grains. But while some superfoods are peddled out of thin air, this one seems to be backed up by evidence.

Britain’s leave-voting areas are falling even further behind three years after Brexit. Our Levelling Up Scorecard shows how they are far more likely to face a widening wealth and opportunity gap relative to richer regions. That’s an excerpt from a Bloomberg Close email I received in January 2023.

We all know the trick of selectively quoting from a passage, so that you can twist it to support whatever you want. As theologian Don Carson pointed out, “A text without a context is a pretext”. Websites such as Quote Investigator check whether a quote was actually said, and give you the context behind it.

Some forms of confirmation bias occur when there’s little quantifiable at stake. If Republicans watch Fox News and Democrats are glued to MSNBC, their knowledge of the world will be less rich, but they don’t suffer any tangible loss. You’d hope that, if there’s money on the table, people might bite the bullet and overcome their biases.