Most Important Lessons of 2005
Via Between Lawyers, What Was the Most Important Lessons You Learned in 2005?
A few of them are a little too “clever web 2.0 meme” for my taste (e.g., “As work gets more complex, more specialized and more networked, we are seeing a World of Ends, and the End of Process.”), but several are quite insightful. This one in particular caught my attention:
15. Look carefully at the data before you jump to conclusions. The main reason for the recent decline in violent crime in America’s cities was Roe v. Wade two decades ago and the increased access to abortion that it allowed. Not law & order, not more prisons and stiffer sentences, not gun control.
I don’t know if that’s true, but I hadn’t thought of it before.
Personally, I have no pithy observations about the most important lessons of 2005.
Dean Jan 28
That is a “fact” which originates from Steven Levin in his book Freakonomics.
There is currently some controversy over how true it is… with Levin apparently missing out some facts, plus other factors at work at the time. See: http://www.freakonomics.com/blog/2005/11/28/everything-in-freakonomics-is-wrong
Still, it was an interesting book.