Bests & Worsts Reviews from Amazon

Throughout his long and distinguished career Thomas Sowell has been a consistent stickler for truth. In this book he takes empirical aim at the truth about outcomes. In short, social scholars and economists inevitably over-simplify cause and effect and fail to accept that “grossly unequal distributions of outcomes are common, both in nature and among people, in circumstances where neither genes nor discrimination are involved.” The book is short, to the point, and very clearly written. You don’t need a degree in sociology or economics to follow. The arguments are steeped in common sense, which is where we often lose sight of the truth in our admirable but misguided desire to do the “right” thing. The problem is actually much bigger than the areas of social justice addressed in the book. It is a problem that is quickly eroding the value of all of our political, social, educational, and economic discourse. Type “This is what science says about …” into Google and you’ll get close to 1.5 billion hits. News outlets and social commentators use the heading daily. In reality, however, “science”, which is an empirical methodology, not a body of knowledge, probably says nothing about the topic, and whatever apparent “facts” the author includes probably say even less in the larger context of truth and meaning. Technology, of course, is making the problem worse. Technology gives a voice to every would-be opinion-maker, reinforcing the false perception, in all of its 1’s and 0’s, that math and statistics are inevitably and inherently “true.” It’s a ruse. To the extent it is true it is typically so only in the one dimension in which the writer of the article used it to advance his or her point. That’s not the multi-dimensional and dynamic world, however, where most important reality, like opportunity, compassion, and fairness actually lives. My only complaint is that the electronic book is over-priced for what it is. The author doesn’t typically set the price and Mr. Sowell is a premium intellect that deserves a premium price tag on his thoughts. It is, nonetheless, an empirically supported conclusion, so I’m hopeful Mr. Sowell will forgive me that.