Freakonomics is Freaky! But Good Freaky | Freakonomics: A Rogue Economist Explores the Hidden Side of...

Enticing, unconventional, new look at old statistical data | Freakonomics: A Rogue Economist Explores the Hidden Side of Everything (P.S.) | Stephen J. Dubner

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	• Freakonomics: A Rogue Economist Explores the Hidden Side of Everything (P.S.) Stephen J. Dubner Harper Perennial, 2009 - 352 pages average customer review:based on 1779 reviews view larger image
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highly recommended

Awesome Logic

This book has such wonderful logic, and amazing use of data in ways that you would not have expected. It is amazing what you can deduce from data which you would not think could be valueable otherwise.

Freakonomics is Freaky! But Good Freaky

When Freakonomics first came out almost six years ago, I thought that it was an interesting idea but nothing that would ever find its way onto my bookshelf. As an English literature fanatic, I could not see myself wasting time reading about economics. Luckily, a friend of mine read it and said that it wasn't so much about economics but how things are related to each other. Though this didn't win me over, he continued by saying that the authors use pop culture issues to help support their claims and that the writing is quite humorous at times. I borrowed the book and when I ran out of other things to read, I cracked it open. I was AMAZED! This book was far more than economics meets pop culture.

Levitt and Dubner draw in the reader from the beginning of the introduction where they touch upon from the issues that they will discuss later in greater depth. They breeze over the similarities between sumo wrestlers and teachers, they gloss over how abortion has lowered crime rates, and nonchalantly mention that maybe your Realtor isn't getting you the best deal. Each chapter covers a different one of these issues from why drug dealers have to live with their mother's to how the name of a child could have an affect on their later successes. Though the correlations that they draw are fascinating, none of them are outside the realm of possibility.

I was captivate by this book like I never thought I would be. Some of the conclusions that they came to seemed a bit obvious. For the most part, reading the book made me feel like I was cracking a giant code. Of course there has been some dispute over the findings, but I didn't think that the actual numbers that they used were that important. I believe that the most important aspect of the book is that it makes you rethink any and all correlations. Since reading Freakonomics, I think about cause and effect very differently and I am no longer satisfied with the adage that X must cause Y. Instead, I follow Levitt and Dubner's example in thinking that maybe there is a third variable to which X and Y are responding. Maybe the world should be open to the possibility of there being a Z.

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Enticing, unconventional, new look at old statistical data

This was certainly not your average read with enticing chapters like "How is the KKK like a group of Real Estate Agents? And Why do drug dealers still live at home with their moms?" It pulls the reader in and allows the statistical data to guide the discovery of facts--unconventional but nonetheless; facts. The chapter about how and why the crime rate was reduced and not because of good policing is certainly provocative. I will leave that one for a surprise for you. In a sociological theory's perspective examining how incentives change behavior is quite interesting. The chapter that links sumo wrestlers to teachers will have you scratching your head convinced by the evidence presented or at least scratching your head wondering how prevalent is the stated behavior as a result of the incentives? I would definitely recommend this book to those interested in sociology, behavior, economics and in this case being willing "to push the envelope" which these authors certainly do. I'm looking forward to reading their next book, "Super Freakanomics."

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Walks the Line

There are books that 'dumb down' complex ideas and books that make complex ideas 'accessible.' This book gracefully walks that fine line. One of my observations of Freakonomics was going to be the lack of any unifying theme: it's really a hodgepodge of essays which purport to look at social phenomena from a 'different angle.' Sort of like Foucault might have done if he were an economist rather than, well, whatever he was. But this collection, as the authors note, is more about the process of questioning conventional wisdom or social reality, whatever it may be.

There are some enticing points which are made, such as the fact that having a swimming pool in a back yard is about 100x more 'risky' for a child than having a gun in the house, or that flying and driving are actually equally risky on a 'per hour' basis. But it would have been truly more interesting if the economic consequences of these insights have been investigated--are insurers pricing these relative costs correctly? There is one relatively 'controversial' essay--perhaps only for social liberals since conservatives are already opposed to the practice--about the crime rate reduction in the 1990s on account of abortion. But this is a problem with hyping to discover the hidden side of 'everything'--the problem of discerning which topics are more important than others with limited time and resources, which, ironically, is a classical economic problem. I think there are other additional controversial issues to be explored, rather than the similarities between sumo wrestlers and teachers (both cheat), which would have more social relevance, or, at the least, depth. For example, the authors hint at the tiny likelihood of being killed in a terrorist attack, but how many untold hundreds of trillions of dollars could have been put to a different use if 9/11 hadn't happened, which have been diverted to preventing this sort of death. Instead of the Iraq War, Social Security could have been put on solid footing for a hundred years. In any case, taking this book to the 'next level' would have investigated the boundaries of how truth is presented in this period, and the specific underlying conditions of truth that constitute what may be expressed as discourse, even if it were only to illustrate the culture's 'controversy' over guns in homes rather than swimming pools. Perhaps, with this insight, like trampolines, swimming pools will someday become persona non grata.

The quotes which introduce each essay from an article in the "New York Times Magazine, August 3, 2003" are a distracting means of legitimizing Stephen Dubner's co-authorship. The authors also avoid investigating their data, for example reporting the story of Sudhir Venatesh's legendary University of Chicago survey of gang leaders without noting the controversy surrounding his methods. But facts might get in the way of a good story.

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I like it

This is a very American book with examples which are set in the US. I think it is terribly interesting and amusing. The stuff at the end about how the name you are born with affects your life is very interesting. Also the idea, that is clearly true, but I'd never thought of it before, that people give their daughters crazier names than their sons. The point of this book is to say that sometimes there are very interesting correlations between things that seem quite disparate. The comparisons between drug dealers and McDonalds as a corporate structure is now received wisdom - Obama quotes this in his book. Overall this is a great little read and quite fun - but really, I can't think of a single book that was improved by self-congratulation.

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Which is more dangerous, a gun or a swimming pool?

What do schoolteachers and sumo wrestlers have in common?

How much do parents really matter?

These may not sound like typical questions for an economist to ask. But Steven D. Levitt is not a typical economist. He studies the riddles of everyday life?from cheating and crime to parenting and sports?and reaches conclusions that turn conventional wisdom on its head. Freakonomics is a groundbreaking collaboration between Levitt and Stephen J. Dubner, an award-winning author and journalist. They set out to explore the inner workings of a crack gang, the truth about real estate agents, the secrets of the Ku Klux Klan, and much more. Through forceful storytelling and wry insight, they show that economics is, at root, the study of incentives?how people get what they want or need, especially when other people want or need the same thing.

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