比如，前一段充满社会责任感的、我的偶像、股神巴菲特说了一句话：“我的秘书比我交的税还要高”（大意）。巴菲特一言既出，美国左派如获至宝，立刻出来指责万恶的美国政府如何是资产阶级的统治工具。在这个piece里，曼老师通过事实，破除了该myth。事实是：美国最穷的20％的人口收入联邦税税率为4.5%，最富的1％人口联邦税率为31.1%。巴菲特现象的存在很大程度上是因为他的大部分收入来自股票买卖和红利，which is subject to a lower tax rate (15％)，and which, 并不是大部分富人发财的方式。
One of Mr. Paulson's first briefings from the Treasury staff should be about what high taxes have done to the economies of Europe. According to research by Nobel laureate Edward Prescott and by economists Steven Davis and Magnus Henrekson, the high tax rates in Europe have reduced work effort and distorted the industrial mix. The Davis-Henrekson study reports that a tax increase of 12.8 percentage points (a change of one standard deviation) reduces work for an average adult by 122 hours per year. It also reduces the employment-population ratio by 4.9 percentage points and increases underground economy by 3.8% of GDP. As Mr. Paulson works to resolve the fiscal imbalance, he should keep the European experience firmly in mind.
再比如，另一个在西方学界颇流行的myth就是“全球化”如何增加贫富悬殊破坏人民群众的福利。在曼老师推荐的这个piece里，我们再一次看到这个myth所隐藏的很多事实。比如，收入差距的拉大很大程度上是市场对教育和工作勤奋度作出的反应，而不是跨国公司的阴谋，比如，“As Ron Haskins of the Brookings Institution noted recently in The Washington Post, between 1991 and 2005, ''the bottom fifth increased its earnings by 80 percent, compared with around 50 percent for the highest-income group and around 20 percent for each of the other three groups.”
当然你可以说，任何一个人对事实的掌握都因其意识形态而具有选择性，但是，去反驳这些有选择性的事实，也需要拿出另一套具有选择性的事实，而不是靠骂街或者煽情。Tell me what, and then tell me why。
我的感觉，把opinion置于knowledge之上的人，一般是与下述词汇联系在一起的：立场、群众、理想、道义、社会、解放、热爱、阴谋、走狗、终极、打倒、“一定要”。而置knowledge于opinion之上的人，一般与下述词汇联系在一起：逻辑、事实、经验、悖论、个人、偏好、当前、可能，“问题是”。在我看来，聪明人和笨蛋的区别不在于他们的观点和派别，而在于他们能否就自己的观点说出有理有据的所以然。在这个意义上，我欣赏有水平的“论敌”远甚于就知道吓吵吵的“战友”。Ultimately，opinion without knowledge is nothing but bias. Or worse, bullshit.