The author of this article profiles the 37-year-old researcher Jay P. Greene and his controversial research studies on education. Most people learn early to trust the things they see first, but Greene adheres to a different creed. People are deceived by their own eyes. He believed that visual betrayal is as evident as it is in how people think about education. In recent years, few researchers have consistently produced as much influential, and some would say heretical, research on topics roiling education as Greene did even as critics questioned his objectivity. His work has scrutinized subjects from dropout rates and bilingual education to charter schools and vouchers.