The Model Thinker: What You Need to Know to Make Data Work for You

when our thinking is informed by diverse logically consistent, empirically validated frames, we are more likely to make wise choices.

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Figure 12.1: Maximal Entropy and Maximal Variance

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A node’s betweenness score equals the percentage of minimal paths that go through a node. In a social network, people with high betweenness scores know more information and wield more power.

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Mastery of models improves your ability to reason, explain, design, communicate, act, predict, and explore.

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When taking actions, wise people apply multiple models like a doctor’s set of diagnostic tests. They use models to rule out some actions and privilege others. Wise people and teams construct a dialogue across models, exploring their overlaps and differences.

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In an optimization-based model, preferences or payoffs are fundamental. In a rule-based model, the behavior is fundamental. Behavioral rules can be fixed or adapt.

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Concave functions have slopes that decrease. Concave functions with positive slopes exhibit diminishing returns:

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People are diverse, we are socially influenced, we are error-prone, we are purposive, and we learn. In addition, people possess agency—we have the capacity to act.

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When behavior is socially influenced, extreme actions can create spillovers. This occurs when political activists energize voters. We will encounter this effect of diversity when we model riots.

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Actions may be outside our control. Few people choose to be addicted to opioids or to be poor. Yet people take actions that produce those outcomes.

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To rely on a single model is hubris.

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The models that characterize the robustness of neuronal networks bear little resemblance to the molecular biology models used to explain brain cell function, which in turn differ from the psychological models used to explain cognitive biases.

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couldn’t claim that I was smarter than sixty-five other guys—but the average of sixty-five other guys, certainly. —Richard Feynman

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preventing riots depends less on reducing average levels of discontent than on appeasing people at the extreme.

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