Truth Addict: How to Ask Questions, Test Ideas, and Get Answers in a Data-Driven World

John Victor Kane

Univ of California Press, Aug 4, 2026 - Education - 344 pages

Foreword by Charles Wheelan

What makes some evidence strong, some evidence weak, and some evidence total nonsense? Truth Addict is your guide to answers.

Individuals, policymakers, and businesses across the globe want to make decisions based on evidence. But not all evidence is created equal.

Truth Addict is the layperson's guide to data, truth, and the gap between them. Whether it's collected through laboratory experiments or public surveys, market research or archival records, data has a story to tell us—but only if we can read it. Drawing on engaging examples, John V. Kane details the logic of gathering and analyzing data as a means of getting us closer to the truth, even if the truth hurts.

Developing research questions. Defining variables. Choosing metrics. Testing hypotheses. Quantifying relationships. Ruling out chance. Considering alternative explanations. Knowing not just that "correlation does not equal causation," but also how to tell the difference. These are key steps along Kane's "Road to Evidence," a journey that begins with curiosity and ends at objective knowledge. You don't have to be a math whiz to study our social world—Truth Addict provides every reader tools to uncover the reality within the numbers.

Contents

• A PROBLEM OF MOTIVATION: 11
• IT ALL BEGINS WITH A QUESTION: 37
• First Formulate Then Fixate: 55
• LEARNING THE LINGO LOVING THE LOGIC: 63
• Out of the Sky and into the Spreadsheet: 100
• Comparison the Giver of Knowledge: 121
• FINDING MEANING IN THE FINDINGS: 129
• Go Figures: 155
• Wrestling with Randomness: 173
• Sizing Up the Results: 193
• DATA DATA EVERYWHERE NOW LET: 205
• Reading Results in Reverse and the Evil Powers of Hidden: 221
• What Should We Conclude? Flaws Limitations: 241
• The Slow Careful Crawl Toward Truth: 256
• The Truth Is Out There Now Go and Find It: 264

About the author

John V. Kane is Associate Professor at the Center for Global Affairs at New York University, where he teaches courses on research methods, applied statistics, and public opinion. He has written for top peer-reviewed journals, as well as for The New York Times, National Public Radio, and elsewhere.

Bibliographic information

• Title: Truth Addict: How to Ask Questions, Test Ideas, and Get Answers in a Data-Driven World
• Author: John Victor Kane
• Contributor: Charles Wheelan
• Publisher: Univ of California Press, 2026
• ISBN: 0520416597, 9780520416598
• Length: 344 pages
• Subjects: Education / Research; Philosophy / Logic; Political Science / General; Science / Research & Methodology; Social Science / Reference; Social Science / Research; Social Science / Statistics