In an age when alchemy was still a common approach to natural phenomena, Kepler filled the universe with invisible forces acting all around us, and h… - David Epstein

around 90 percent of major infrastructure projects worldwide go over budget (by an average of 28 percent) in part because managers focus on the details of their project and become overly optimistic. Project managers can become like Kahneman’s curriculum-building team, which decided that thanks to its roster of experts it would certainly not encounter the same delays as did other groups.

The world is not golf, and most of it isn’t even tennis. As Robin Hogarth put it, much of the world is “Martian tennis.” You can see the players on a court with balls and rackets, but nobody has shared the rules. It is up to you to derive them, and they are subject to change without notice.

including thousands of paintings in his unique, semi-cartoonish style, often densely packed with animals and figures — Elvis, George Washington, angels — and set fancifully in apocalyptic landscapes. In short order, he was appearing on Johnny Carson’s Tonight Show and creating album covers for R.E.M. and Talking Heads. Upon entry to the garden, I was greeted by a giant self-portrait of a smirking Finster in a burgundy suit, affixed to a cinderblock wall. At the bottom are the words “I began painting pictures in Jan-1976 — without any training. This is my painting. A person don’t know what he can do unless he tryes. Trying things is the answer to find your talent.