The Science of Data Generation

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We're in the first inning or two of data generation, especially in economics. Benford's law says humans tend to give numbers that are very different then a machine. There are different safeguards that you can set up and i think we will do those as a science. We'll talk about basic income pilot programms after the break.

In a new book called The Voltage Effect, the economist John List — who has already revolutionized how his profession does research — is trying to start a scaling revolution. In this installment of the Freakonomics Radio Book Club, List teaches us how to avoid false positives, how to know whether a given success is due to the chef or the ingredients, and how to practice “optimal quitting.”