On Advertising
“Advertising is legalized lying.” – H.G. Wells
(Click here to view comments)
“Advertising is legalized lying.” – H.G. Wells
(Click here to view comments)
I really like teaching Duke undergraduates. They are an ambitious and intelligent group. But sometimes their ambition and intelligence get in the way of creative thinking, especially in regards to careers. They all want to remain high achievers, so they know they must either become doctors, lawyers, investment bankers or business consultants. Not infrequently I…
Behavioral economists have written a lot about sunk costs. The idea is pretty simple: once people have invested in an effort – in time or money – they stick with that effort longer than is otherwise justified. They don’t want to feel like they’ve wasted their investment, so they continue to invest even when pulling…
When people mention Bayes’ Theorem, the cornerstone of much of modern probability thinking, most do not realize that much of the thinking to develop this theorem was done by Pierre-Simon Laplace, a French astronomer and mathematician. As if his work on that theorem was not enough to make him one of my heroes, I recently…
A very disturbing new study was just published, in which physicians viewed a video of a patient with back pain asking for OxyContin. Twenty percent of docs said they would prescribe that med under that circumstance: …Too often, doctors prescribe potentially dangerous medications to patients who shouldn’t be getting them, and what they prescribe is…
Last week, I had the pleasure of participating in what the World Economic Forum founder, Klaus Schwab, described as the planet’s largest brainstorming session. Approximately 700 leading thinkers (and me, too) converged upon Dubai to discuss the greatest economic challenges facing the world, from the current economic crisis to future crises. People from 6 continents…
Here’s the opening paragraph from a New York Times magazine article published in May of this year, about monk seals. What a great way to open the piece: The Hawaiian monk seal has wiry whiskers and the deep, round eyes of an apologetic child. The animals will eat a variety of fish and selfish, or…