Moskowitz, a behavioral economist, and Wertheim, a sportswriter, aim to unsettle sports fans with essays that debunk ingrained strategy (punting on fourth down, for example, is largely a waste) and make a number of otherwise eye-opening assertions (officials in all sports are biased).
Furthermore, Mr. Davies's assertion that opening more casinos would lead to more problem gamblers simply isn't true.
The Department of Homeland Security did not immediately respond to questions about the laboratory, but there were indications last week that the department planned a quick response to Mr. Carroll's assertions, perhaps including opening the laboratory to a new round of press tours.
John Templeton Jnr, president of the Templeton Foundation, said: "The questions Lord Rees raises have an impact far beyond the simple assertion of facts, opening wider vistas than any telescope ever could.
It turns out to be merely the opening salvo in his increasingly odd between-song banter – "calm up everyone, leave it in, leave it in," he offers later – but equally, opening his gig with an assertion of his individuality seems telling.
And it has been a year since the White House and the C.I.A. acknowledged that the evidence behind that assertion was flawed, opening Mr. Bush to a torrent of criticism about the credibility and reliability of the intelligence he used to justify toppling Saddam Hussein.
When Ms. Deen complained that "something evil" was out seeking to destroy her business, it was one of those odd, open-ended assertions, like Hillary Rodham Clinton's statement, made on the "Today" program in 1998, about a "vast right-wing conspiracy" against her husband.
His first feature, "Paris Belongs to Us," opens with the assertion that "Paris belongs to no one," and the contradiction sums up his sense of the city both as a playground and a source of forbidding mystery.
The report opens with the assertion that: Throughout 2013, governments across the former Soviet space worked to shut off the remaining oxygen supply to their democratic institutions As in every year for the past 10 years the average democracy score for the region declined in 2013, with 16 countries suffering downgrades, five improving, and eight not registering an overall score change.
The speaker who makes an incorrect assertion opens himself to criticism by his addressee, perhaps for misleading him, in a way similar to a subject who fails to live up to a promise.
