Elizabeth Kolbert has some not very flattering things to say about Levitt and Dubner’s new book. (along with RealClimate and several other blogs)
According to Levitt and Dubner, the story’s message is a simple one: if, at any particular moment, things look bleak, it’s because people are seeing them the wrong way. “When the solution to a given problem doesn’t lie right before our eyes, it is easy to assume that no solution exists,” they write. “But history has shown again and again that such assumptions are wrong.”
Solutions do exist. But there’s money to be made in proposing easy solutions to difficult situations, and there’s a supply of credulous customers for quick fixes, assuming they haven’t spent all their money on diet- or male-enhancement pills.
if, at any particular moment, things look bleak, it’s because people are seeing them the wrong way.
24 October 1929; Auschwitz, Birkenau, Belzec, Treblinka, Sobibor, Dachau… Iwo Jima; Hiroshime, Nagasaki; Khmer Rouge, Shining Path, North Korea; 11 September 2001; New Orelans and Hurricane Katrina – the Superdome. A cautious optimism is always in order.