In a powerful and masterfully-argued book, Manzi shows us how the methods of science can be applied to social and economic policy in order to ensure progress and prosperity.
Tyler Cowen, Marginal Revolution
"This is a truly stimulating book, about how methods of controlled experimentation will bring a new wave of business and social innovation."
The American
"This book is one of the most powerful challenges to progressive political impulses I've read in a while."
Booklist
"This challenging book highlights the astounding advances in science and technology that have started to be used in social-program evaluations."
Conor Friedersdorf, The Atlantic
"If Uncontrolled were merely a restatement of the need for epistemic humility among wonks and legislators, interest in it might be confined to the right. The book is of broader interest, and may turn out to be important, because its author makes a compelling argument for an ideologically neutral method for improving policy, one that left and right might both plausibly embrace, even as it challenges both sides to rethink some of their reflexes.... [Uncontrolled is] the rare political book that goes out of its way to raise the most powerful objections to its arguments and to point out the limits of the reform program that it recommends."
Andrew Sullivan, The Daily Beast / The Dish
"It's a fresh, dense and fascinating exploration of what the policy implications of a true 'conservatism of doubt' would mean. I hope it can jumpstart a conservative intellectual renaissance."
Kirkus Reviews
"A thoroughly argued, powerful study based on principles independent of the author's own conservative-libertarian views."
Arnold Kling, National Review
"The ideas in this book are important.... This is a provocative book for people who are interested in how social science relates to public policy."
The American Conservative
"[A]s Jim Manzi persuasively argues in his insightful and well-written new book, Uncontrolled, humanity is terrible at foresight, and trial-and-error is the chief way humans develop reliable knowledge.... In Uncontrolled, Manzi provides an incisive and highly readable account of how trial-and-error experimentation in science and free markets lessens human ignorance, uproots bias, and produces progress."
Wall Street Journal
"[O]ffers much to digest.... Uncontrolled is at its most provocative...when Mr. Manzi considers the largely unmet potential of controlled experimentation to improve outcomes in social science and government policy.... A vigorous book, pulsing with ideas."
Arnold Kling, National Review
"The ideas in this book are important.... This is a provocative book for people who are interested in how social science relates to public policy."