I'm a big fan of the book Freakonomics, the sequel Superfreakonomics, and the Freakonomics podcast.

It is very hard to find honest, objective discussion about anything. Everyone seems to allow their mindless political identity, religious indoctrination, or just plain old ignorance to control their views on almost every topic. Levitt and Dubner bypass all that nonsense by looking at issues from the perspective of economics – not finances – but numbers. They ask – what do the numbers really say? The numbers, frequently, reveal that “common sense” is baseless.

Take this, for example. Environmentalists often encourage us to buy our foods from local sources. They say it is good for the environment. The “common sense” rationalization being that buying tomatoes from 10 miles away uses less energy and pollutes less than having those tomatoes transported 3000 miles. Sounds reasonable, doesn’t it? But what do the numbers say? The numbers say that only 11% of the energy cost of food is due to the transportation. 89% is from the actual farming. Large farms are more efficient than small farms – so buying your tomatoes from a mega-farm 3000 miles away could very well be better for the environment than buying them from a local small farm. There are other reasons to buy local, such as supporting your community and harvesting when ripe, but the point is that we are often presented with "truths" that simply aren't true.