The clarification chain is just a short series of connections that should bring us from thinking of something as an intangible to thinking of it as tangible. First, we recognize that if X is something that we care about, then X, by definition, must be detectable in some way. ... If we can observe it in some amount, then it must be measurable.

Subatomic particles and humans have something in common. The act of observing them causes them both to change behavior. ... To their surprise, they found that worker productivity improved no matter how they changed the workplace. The workers were simply responding to the knowledge of being observed; or perhaps, researchers hypothesized, management taking interest in them caused a positive reaction.

Those that are not quite rational but perhaps not a bad rule of thumb are called “heuristics.” Those that utterly fly in the face of reason are called “fallacies.”