Silly Little Country

Exceptional People

One thing I enjoy about following blogs is the discovery of numerous exceptional people I would never have discovered by other means (a few simple examples would be P. Z. Myers, Norm Geras, Tyler Cowen, and Chris Dillow). Their existence, and desire to address a broad audience, enriches my life enormously.

There is a second-hand way to find such people as well, and that is at second-hand. Though this article is from a couple of years ago, it is a very entertaining combination of two stories, one a nice piece of detective work with a result that includes at least one major surprise (the China-India point near the end), and the story of how the use of what may have been a misleadingly small sample set has generated new insights. The theme is curiosity, and three family members who applied it in different ways.

(h/t Freakonomics)

posted by Alan Adamson @ 9:50 AM