{"id":5503,"date":"2016-01-26T14:21:42","date_gmt":"2016-01-26T19:21:42","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.decisionsciencenews.com\/?p=5503"},"modified":"2016-01-27T11:25:35","modified_gmt":"2016-01-27T16:25:35","slug":"dont-believe-quotation-websites","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.decisionsciencenews.com\/?p=5503","title":{"rendered":"Don’t believe quotation websites"},"content":{"rendered":"

QUOTATION: THE ACT OF REPEATING ERRONEOUSLY THE WORDS OF ANOTHER – AMBROSE BIERCE<\/p>\n

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A conference organizer recently reached out to your Decision Science News editor (Dan Goldstein, aka me) asking if they could use the above quote in promotional materials.<\/p>\n

I doubted it was my quote. Doesn’t sound like the kind of thing I’d say. But who knows. It does relate to future self stuff, which I do talk about. Perhaps I said it after a few beers and forgot.<\/p>\n

After poking around, I figured out it’s a Dan Gilbert quote<\/a> that got attributed to me, Dan Goldstein. Apart from the fact that Gilbert is a far bigger shot than Goldstein, it’s a forgivable mistake. We’re both Dans. We’re even Daniel Gs. We’re both psychologists, with TED talks, who’ve researched consumer financial decision making. I even spent a semester in Gilbert’s lab.<\/p>\n

So one source mixing it up one time is forgivable.<\/p>\n

But check this out. The whole Internet has it wrong:<\/p>\n

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One reason I suspected this wasn’t my quote is that I’m not that good with words. Dan Gilbert, on the other hand, is great with words. Gilbert’s a guy who dropped out of high school to become a professional science fiction writer.<\/p>\n

Due to the magic of non-independent errors, the Internet mistakenly believes that I too dropped out of high school to become a science fiction writer.<\/p>\n

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Three things you can quote me on:<\/p>\n