I am indebted to airport bookstores. And I am thus indebted to such an extent, that I can confess to arriving early for any flight departing from an airport with a bookstore for the sole purpose of securing a few additional minutes to browse books. If it were not for the practicalities of travelling, I would probably have bought this book much sooner than I did for I had been securing extra minutes in airport bookstores just to read through another chapter long before I actually bought it.

You see, my travels are laden with a heavy debate: shall I pack my extra suitcase with books or groceries? I resolve this by alternating. For one trip to the Outside, a spare duffel bag will be dedicated to books and I will shun all opportunities to visit grocery stores just to preserve that determination. On the next visit, I will carry a spare cooler (rather than duffel bag) and splurge on leg of lamb and cheeses free of artificial coloring. The ultimate effect of this system, however, is a backlog in possessing the books I'd like to read.

Finally, however, the fates aligned. I was travelling to Iowa on what I expected to be a gloriously grocery-focused trip. But my cooler broke as I was carrying it to the truck that we would drive to our local airport. There wasn't time to fix it. I was sad, of course, as I had been anticipating all the pork I was going to return with from Iowa. But I consoled myself with all those Iowa cookbooks I could now carry, and resolved not to prolong any lamentations over the cooler. And, oh, did I find myself lugging around a heavy library - such hours did I spend in Powells (there was a 1 week layover in Oregon) and Iowa City's bookstores. The day before we left Iowa, Nate told me about how much he enjoyed this book. His description renewed my interest, and I committed myself to buying a copy before we left. But, alas, we ran out of time. We didn't make it to a bookstore. It was sadder than the last-minute loss of the cooler. So when we arrived in Chicago, and had a few minutes to wait for the connecting flight to Alaska, and our gate was right next to a book kiosk, and I was pretty sure there was just enough room in my carry-on to squeeze in one more book - it was this book that I grabbed.

I raced through it. Loving each chapter. I really can't recommend it enough. A fun read, for those who like to be entertained by books. Informative too, for those that like to read for knowledge, thought, and/or discourse. But what elevates it to favorite is that it alters perception and challenges assumptions. For what it's worth, I have no regrets that I carried this book rather than Iowa pork.....and I can think of no finer testament to a good book. Then again, most of my entertainment these days revolves around pickling turnips. So if turnips aren't your thing, feel free to take my recommendation with a grain of salt....but you should still read this book.

For a book that so heavily relies on (mostly) untested assumptions, the repeated, passionate references to the distinction between causality and correlation is impressive if not audacious, to say the least.

Suffice to say, n  “"As Levitt sees it, economics is a science with excellent tools for gaining answers but a serious shortage of interesting questions".n

Exactly, Stephen. And that would work extremely well as an inside joke too. Unless you are implying that, in contrast with the usual textbooks, n  Freakonomicsn actually uses science to pose those questions. In which case, and given the absolute lack of evidence, statistics and insight on any methodological tools here, I can’t help wondering: Science? What science? Where? GIVE ME ONE PAGE.

The other unfortunate thing here is the n  “Revised and Expanded edition”n issue, which can generally mean a number of things, but in the case of n  Freakonomicsn in specific, it was, as we know, the result of a huge wave of negative feedback from reviewers due to:

a) the fact that the authors massively exaggerated some of their assumptions (because, obviously: when you think you’re using science when you really are not, that’s just bound to happen) and, as if this isn't enough already, the authors’ reliance on some quite noticeable mathematical monstrosities.

b) The self-praise:
“Hi. I’m Stephen J. Dubner. And I’m co-authoring this book. The other author is Steven D. Levitt and he’s such a genius, radical economist that we’re thinking we’ll stuff n  Freakonomicsn with tons of newspaper clippings on how awesome he is. And that’s gonna be all over the place. Yes! Oh, in case you’re wondering what a too-cool-for-school unconventional genius like Steven D. Levitt is doing writing books instead of just being a weird recluse in permanent scientific euphoria, worry not! He wasn't interested in writing anything, silly ones (as if)! Not unless it was with me, because, in case you haven’t figured it out already, I’m a kickarse, amazing journalist too! So please read us. Please. We’ll make you feel important and scientific”.

So apparently they got the message and scrapped most of that out of the book, hence the n  “Revised and Expanded”n edition.

But honestly, when I found all that out, for a moment I thought I needed to double check that I was actually reading the revised thing.
I was? Really? REALLY? WHAT WAS THE FIRST VERSION LIKE THEN?

And it’s certainly not my fault that Nick Hornby has the answer to nearly everything. I don’t remember which issue of The Believer he wrote that in, but it was along the lines of: n  "Freakonomicsn was a cool book and it made me feel smart. But what was it about?”
Exactly, thank you.

Two stars, because some of the questions they pose have interesting political and social implications, even though all questions are always posed through prose (with the use of loose logic at best) and absolutely not through the use of science.

Oh. And the title is.. er.. misleading (Today I’m nice).

The "experts are evil, have agendas, will trick you" talk got old real fast, especially when points are later being backed up with experts research. There's not enough discussion on the data itself, no distinction between quantitative and qualitative, and not enough discussion on the many flaws of data and how we analyze it. Pretty interesting how much he dislikes criminologists but then (if I remember correctly), only mentions the same one or two names over and over when giving examples of criminologists that had agendas/tricked the public. Also the fact that the entire book, and the issues, feels very simplified. Actually the author puts it best himself:
"The typical parenting expert, like experts in other fields, is prone to sound exceedingly sure of himself. An expert doesn’t so much argue the various sides of an issue, as plant his flag firmly on one side. That’s because an expert who’s argument reeks of restraint or nuance often doesn’t get much attention. An expert must be bold if he hopes to alchemise (?) his homespun theory into conventional wisdom."
This is often how I perceived the book to be written, very simplified, without enough nuance or room for possible explanations - only one right answer. I didn't like how the book was written, how the topics where dealt with, and had a hard time taking anything seriously after all of the self-admiration and the repeated "all experts have agendas (except for us)" talk in every chapter.

Levitt and Dubner's ground breaking look at the world through the eyes of collated data that tells a story in itself, like their shocking discovery of what caused a huge drop in crime in America in the 1990s. Reading this a decade on I still find this so absorbing and interesting which is just as much as a result of their writing style as their great content.
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Just remember assume nothing... question everything! 8 out of 12.

Extremely enlightening! Worthy of 15 stars out of 5! This is a book about the world and not about any science in particular. It's about learning to question the given and see beyond the obvious. An extremely useful gift in the misguiding modern world.

Yeah, populistic much too much but neverthless compulsively readable. A definite revisit and reread.

Q:
As Levitt sees it, economics is a science with excellent tools for gaining answers but a serious shortage of interesting questions. His particular gift is the ability to ask such questions. For instance: If drug dealers make so much money, why do they still live with their mothers? Which is more dangerous, a gun or a swimming pool? What really caused crime rates to plunge during the past decade? Do real-estate agents have their clients’ best interests at heart? Why do black parents give their children names that may hurt their career prospects? Do schoolteachers cheat to meet high-stakes testing standards? Is sumo wrestling corrupt?
And how does a homeless man in tattered clothing afford $50 headphones?
(c)
Q:
the modern world, despite a surfeit of obfuscation, complication, and downright deceit, is not impenetrable, is not unknowable, and—if the right questions are asked—is even more intriguing than we think. All it takes is a new way of looking.
(c)
Q:
“Experts”—from criminologists to real-estate agents-use their informational advantage to serve their own agenda. However, they can be beat at their own game. And in the face of the Internet, their informational advantage is shrinking every day-as evidenced by, among other things, the falling price of coffins and life-insurance premiums.
Knowing what to measure and how to measure it makes a complicated world much less so. If you learn how to look at data in the right way, you can explain riddles that otherwise might have seemed impossible. Because there is nothing like the sheer power of numbers to scrub away layers of confusion and contradiction.
So the aim of this book is to explore the hidden side of . . . everything. This may occasionally be a frustrating exercise. It may sometimes feel as if we are peering at the world through a straw or even staring into a funhouse mirror; but the idea is to look at many different scenarios and examine them in a way they have rarely been examined.
...
Steven Levitt may not fully believe in himself, but he does believe in this: teachers and criminals and real-estate agents may lie, and politicians, and even CIA analysts. But numbers don’t.
(c)
Q:
Levitt had an interview for the Society of Fellows, the venerable intellectual clubhouse at
Harvard that pays young scholars to do their own work, for three years, with no commitments.
Levitt felt he didn’t stand a chance. For starters, he didn’t consider himself an intellectual. He would
be interviewed over dinner by the senior fellows, a collection of world-renowned philosophers,
scientists, and historians. He worried he wouldn’t have enough conversation to last even the first
course.
Disquietingly, one of the senior fellows said to Levitt, “I’m having a hard time seeing the
unifying theme of your work. Could you explain it?”
Levitt was stymied. He had no idea what his unifying theme was, or if he even had one.
Amartya Sen, the future Nobel-winning economist, jumped in and neatly summarized what he
saw as Levitt’s theme.
Yes, Levitt said eagerly, that’s my theme.
Another fellow then offered another theme.
You’re right, said Levitt, my theme.
And so it went, like dogs tugging at a bone, until the philosopher Robert Nozick interrupted.
“How old are you, Steve?” he asked.
“Twenty-six.”
Nozick turned to the other fellows: “He’s twenty-six years old. Why does he need to have a
unifying theme? Maybe he’s going to be one of those people who’s so talented he doesn’t need one.
He’ll take a question and he’ll just answer it, and it’ll be fine.”
(c)
Q:
There are three basic flavors of incentive: economic, social, and moral. Very often a single incentive scheme will include all three varieties. Think about the anti-smoking campaign of recent years. The addition of a $3-per-pack “sin tax” is a strong economic incentive against buying cigarettes. The banning of cigarettes in restaurants and bars is a powerful social incentive. And when the U.S. government asserts that terrorists raise money by selling black-market cigarettes, that acts as a rather jarring moral incentive.
Some of the most compelling incentives yet invented have been put in place to deter crime. Considering this fact, it might be worthwhile to take a familiar question—why is there so much crime in modern society?—and stand it on its head: why isn’t there a lot more crime? After all, every one of us regularly passes up opportunities to maim, steal, and defraud. The chance of going to jail—thereby losing your job, your house, and your freedom, all of which are essentially economic penalties—is certainly a strong incentive. But when it comes to crime, people also respond to moral incentives (they don’t want to do something they consider wrong) and social incentives (they don’t want to be seen by others as doing something wrong). For certain types of misbehavior, social incentives are terribly powerful. In an echo of Hester Prynne’s scarlet letter, many American cities now fight prostitution with a “shaming” offensive, posting pictures of convicted johns (and prostitutes) on websites or on local-access television. Which is a more horrifying deterrent: a $500 fine for soliciting a prostitute or the thought of your friends and family ogling you on www.HookersAndJohns.com.
(с)
Q:
Some cheating leaves barely a shadow of evidence. In other cases, the evidence is massive.
Consider what happened one spring evening at midnight in 1987: seven million American children
suddenly disappeared. The worst kidnapping wave in history? Hardly. It was the night of April 15,
and the Internal Revenue Service had just changed a rule. Instead of merely listing each dependent
child, tax filers were now required to provide a Social Security number for each child. Suddenly,
seven million children—children who had existed only as phantom exemptions on the previous
year’s 1040 forms—vanished, representing about one in ten of all dependent children in the United
States
(c)
Q:
Of all the ideas that Kennedy had thought up—and would think up in the future—to fight bigotry, his Superman campaign was easily the cleverest and probably the most productive. It had the precise effect he hoped: turning the Klan’s secrecy against itself, converting precious knowledge
into ammunition for mockery. Instead of roping in millions of members as it had just a generation
earlier, the Klan lost momentum and began to founder. Although the Klan would never quite die,
especially down South—David Duke, a smooth-talking Klan leader from Louisiana, mounted
legitimate bids for the U.S. Senate and other offices—it was also never quite the same. In The Fiery Cross: The Ku Klux Klan in America, the historian Wyn Craig Wade calls Stetson Kennedy “the single most important factor in preventing a postwar revival of the Ku Klux Klan in the North.”
This did not happen because Kennedy was courageous or resolute or unflappable, even though he was all of these. It happened because Kennedy understood the raw power of information. The Ku Klux Klan was a group whose power—much like that of politicians or real-estate agents or stockbrokers—was derived in large part from the fact that it hoarded information. Once that information falls into the wrong hands (or, depending on your point of view, the right hands), much of the group’s advantage disappears.
(с)
Q:
Information is so powerful that the assumption of information, even if the information does not actually exist, can have a sobering effect.
(c)
Q:
It is common for one party to a transaction to have better information than another party. In
the parlance of economists, such a case is known as an information asymmetry. We accept as a
verity of capitalism that someone (usually an expert) knows more than someone else (usually a
consumer).
(c)
Q:
If you were to assume that many experts use their information to your detriment, you’d be
right. Experts depend on the fact that you don’t have the information they do. Or that you are so
befuddled by the complexity of their operation that you wouldn’t know what to do with the
information if you had it. Or that you are so in awe of their expertise that you wouldn’t dare
challenge them. If your doctor suggests that you have angioplasty—even though some current
research suggests that angioplasty often does little to prevent heart attacks—you aren’t likely to
think that the doctor is using his informational advantage to make a few thousand dollars for
himself or his buddy. But as David Hillis, an interventional cardiologist at the University of Texas
Southwestern Medical Center in Dallas, explained to the New York Times, a doctor may have the
same economic incentives as a car salesman or a funeral director or a mutual fund manager: “If
you’re an invasive cardiologist and Joe Smith, the local internist, is sending you patients, and if you
tell them they don’t need the procedure, pretty soon Joe Smith doesn’t send patients anymore.”
(c)
Q:
Consider this true story, related by John Donohue, a law professor who in 2001 was teaching at Stanford University: “I was just about to buy a house on the Stanford campus,” he recalls, “and the seller’s agent kept telling me what a good deal I was getting because the market was about to zoom. As soon as I signed the purchase contract, he asked me if I would need an agent to sell my previous Stanford house. I told him that I would probably try to sell without an agent, and he replied, ‘John, that might work under normal conditions, but with the market tanking now, you really need the help of a broker.’”
Within five minutes, a zooming market had tanked. Such are the marvels that can be conjured by an agent in search of the next deal.
(c)
Q:
They were also a lot richer, taller, skinnier, and better-looking than average. That, at least, is what they wrote about themselves. More than 4 percent of the online daters claimed to earn more than $200,000 a year, whereas fewer than 1 percent of typical Internet users actually earn that much, suggesting that three of the four big earners were exaggerating. Male and female users typically reported that they are about an inch taller than the national average. As for weight, the men were in line with the national average, but the women typically said they weighed about twenty pounds less than the national average.
Most impressively, fully 70 percent of the women claimed “above average” looks, including 24 percent claiming “very good looks.” The online men too were gorgeous: 67 percent called themselves “above average,” including 21 percent with “very good looks.” This leaves only about 30 percent of the users with “average” looks, including a paltry 1 percent with “less than average” looks—which suggests that the typical online dater is either a fabulist, a narcissist, or simply resistant to the meaning of “average.” (Or perhaps they are all just realists: as any real-estate agent knows, the typical house isn’t “charming” or “fantastic,” but unless you say it is, no one will even bother to take a look.) Twenty-eight percent of the women on the site said they were blond, a number far beyond the national average, which indicates a lot of dyeing, or lying, or both.
Some users, meanwhile, were bracingly honest. Eight percent of the men—about 1 in every 12 conceded that they were married, with half of these 8 percent reporting that they were “happily married.” But the fact that they were honest doesn’t mean they were rash. Of the 258 “happily married” men in the sample, only 9 chose to post a picture of themselves. The reward of gaining a mistress was evidently outweighed by the risk of having your wife discover your personal ad.
(c)
Q:
But if there is no unifying theme to Freakonomics, there is at least a common thread running through the everyday application of Freakonomics. It has to do with thinking sensibly about how people behave in the real world. All it requires is a novel way of looking, of discerning, of measuring. This isn’t necessarily a difficult task, nor does it require supersophisticated thinking. We have essentially tried to figure out what the typical gang member or sumo wrestler figured out on his own (although we had to do so in reverse).
Will the ability to think such thoughts improve your life materially? Probably not. Perhaps you’ll put up a sturdy gate around your swimming pool or push your real-estate agent to work a little harder. But the net effect is likely to be more subtle than that.
You might become more skeptical of the conventional wisdom; you may begin looking for hints as to how things aren’t quite what they seem; perhaps you will seek out some trove of data and sift through it, balancing your intelligence and your intuition to arrive at a glimmering new idea. Some of these ideas might make you uncomfortable, even unpopular. To claim that legalized abortion resulted in a massive drop in crime will inevitably lead to explosive moral reactions.
(c)

i was totally unimpressed. i didn't even finish. i know people like this one, but something about the constant references to levitt's genius and "rogue-ish-ness" turned me off. if someone is brillian i think it should come across in their writing with out having to assert it in the introduction. oh! and the part at the beginning where he wonders how the homeless guy can afford headphones, and this is suppossed to be an example of how uniquely his mind works?! please.

Freakonomics: A Rogue Economist Explores the Hidden Side of Everything (Freakonomics), Steven D. Levitt, Stephen J. Dubner
Freakonomics: A Rogue Economist Explores the Hidden Side of Everything is the debut non-fiction book by University of Chicago economist Steven Levitt and New York Times journalist Stephen J. Dubner. It was published on April 12, 2005, by William Morrow. The book has been described as melding pop culture with economics. By late 2009, the book had sold over 4 million copies worldwide.
The book is a collection of articles written by Levitt, an expert who had gained a reputation for applying economic theory to diverse subjects not usually covered by "traditional" economists. In Freakonomics, Levitt and Dubner argue that economics is, at root, the study of incentives. The book's chapters cover:
Chapter 1: Discovering cheating as applied to teachers and sumo wrestlers, as well as a typical Washington, D.C.–area bagel business and its customers
Chapter 2: Information control as applied to the Ku Klux Klan and real-estate agents
Chapter 3: The economics of drug dealing, including the surprisingly low earnings and abject working conditions of crack cocaine dealers
Chapter 4: The role legalized abortion has played in reducing crime, contrasted with the policies and downfall of Romanian dictator Nicolae Ceauşescu (Levitt explored this topic in an earlier paper entitled "The Impact of Legalized Abortion on Crime," written with John Donohue.)
Chapter 5: The negligible effects of good parenting on education
Chapter 6: The socioeconomic patterns of naming children (nominative determinism)
تاریخ نخستین خوانش: روز بیست و هفتم ماه آگوست سال 2008 میلادی
عنوان: اقتصاد ناهنجاری‌های پنهان اجتماعی؛ نویسنده: استیون لویت، استپان‌ دابنر؛ مترجم: سعید مشیری؛ تهران: نشر نی‏‫، 1386؛ در 269 ص؛ شابک: 9789643129507؛ چاپ دوم 1392؛ موضوع: اقتصاد از نویسندگان امریکایی - جنبه های روانشناسی - سده 21 م
عنوان: اقتصاد، علم انگیزه‌ها؛ نویسنده: استیون دی‌. لویت؛ مترجم: امیرحسین توکلی؛ تهران: سبزان‏‫، 1385؛ در 197 ص؛ شابک: 9789648249674؛ عنوان روی جلد: اقتصاد علم انگیزه‌ها: مهارت‌های لازم برای کشف ابعاد پنهان پدیده‌ها؛
‬کتاب «فریکونومیکس» در باره ی اقتصاد، از اقتصاددان دانشگاه شیکاگو «استیون لویت» است، که نخستین بار در روز دوازدهم ماه آوریل سال 2005 میلادی منتشر شد. این کتاب تا پایان سال 2009 میلادی، بیش از چهار میلیون نسخه فروش داشته است. کتاب با عنوان «اقتصاد ناهنجاری‌های اجتماعی» توسط نشر نی و با ترجمه ی جناب «سعید مشیری»، و با عنوان: «اقتصاد، علم انگیزه‌ها»؛ با ترجمه ی جناب «امیرحسین توکلی»، منتشر شده است. کتاب چندین فصل دارد: درباره حقه زدن در شغل‌هایی مانند معلمی و کشتی‌گیران سومو؛ شباهت‌های کوکلوس‌کلان‌ و افراد معاملات ملکی؛ سیستم اقتصادی کارتل‌های مواد مخدر؛ تاثیر قانونی‌سازی سقط جنین در کاهش جرایم چندین سال بعد؛ نقش بسیار کم تربیت خوب کودکان توسط والدین در بهتر شدن آموزش و پرورششان؛ و الگوهای نامگذاری کودکان در یک جامعه. ا. شربیانی

what's wrong with this book?

1. this book has nothing to do with economics. Something like "freakostatistics" would make much more sense as the name of the book.

2. in the introduction, the writers warn us that correlation does not imply causality. OK, agreed. But the rest of the book is just that: THEY act as if correlation and causality are the same thing (but they just have more "fun" explanation for stuff). What exactly is their proof that they are not "inventing explanations" based on correlation, without any real evidence of causation?


This book is just a pile of interesting nonsense.

EDIT (2016): There is another thing in the authors' arguments that really bother me (besides the "correlation vs causality" debate). The authors' approach to economics is that economics is all about how incentives play out. While incentives are no doubt important in human behaviour, this is an extremely shallow way of talking about economics. It is also very consistent with "unfettered free market" ideology, which says that the best way to organize society is through profit incentive. This is a dangerous proposition (as we have seen in 2008) and scientifically very doubtful.

A fascinating book that taught me a lot of things about myself and other people that were distinctly uncomfortable. Herewith some of the tidbits I picked up.

* About 10% of the population are happy to commit some sort of fraud, even if it just consists of not paying for their lunchtime sandwiches.
* IQ is inherited not nurtured
* On the whole we don't like old people.
* Attractive men are rich, tall and have a full head of hair.
* Attractive women are pretty, blonde and not too successful.
* The introduction of legalized abortion can drop crime levels.
* Money spent on election campaigns is mostly money down the drain.
* Often what we say in public is not what we feel in private. (eg racist politicians are often condemned in public but voted for in the privacy of the voting booth.)

And the good news...

* You can vastly change your life for the better by getting online and doing your own research. Leaving it all to the experts - be they doctors, funeral directors or life insurance agents - is a mugs game.

I found this book hugely provocative, but also fascinating, and it has certainly broadened my outlook by a whole stack. I'm not convinced....but it's got me wondering about a lot of stuff. It was also written with humour. Chapter 3 for instance is titled Why Do Drug Dealers Still Live with Their Moms?

Very highly recommended.

I enjoyed Steven Levitt and Stephen Dubner’s Freakonomics: A Rogue Economist Explores the Hidden Side of Everything; however, I’m not yet sure if it is simply entertaining or is in any way instructive. Levitt and Dubner explore a diverse range of subjects: from linking Roe v. Wade to violent crime, cheating by teachers and sumo wrestlers to an economic model of drug dealing.

I’d like to think that the stories told by the authors and the way they analyze conventional thinking would put me on a path to look past easy answers. Having completed Freakonomics, do I look at the world radically differently than I did before picking up the book? It is Interesting to look at subjects from a different angle. Positing that economics and specifically the field of study now dubbed freakonomics has nothing to do with morality is an intriguing concept as well, but deciding which stories to tell is necessarily selective. Indeed, the focus is interesting. So yes I enjoyed Freakonomics, but feel I should have more to say about it and the authors’ underlying premises than I do. 3.25 stars

I found this book to be really fascinating. Chapter 3- Why do drug dealers still live with their moms, was very illuminating. I like the questions they posed and the connections they came up with. I was quite surprised about the American school system, especially the fact that teachers often used cheating methods to make sure their students scored well in standardized tests.The section about how given names may influence one's future was quite gloomy in some ways, especially as there's evidence that we are judged based on our names, not on our abilities. All in all, a lot of great information.

DNF @ 25%. Freshman year at college, I had the opportunity to take a writing seminar built around Freakonomics. Suffice to say, I dodged a fucking bullet. Freakonomics is a woefully misinformed, poorly written, disgustingly quirky "nonfiction" "economics" book that has very little to do with econ. The book's half-baked theories are presented poorly, but the concepts are so fantastic and dazzling that—to hell with academic research and facts! let's conflate correlation and causality, make a bunch of tables in excel, and bam! Freakonomics, baby! Instant bestseller!

Also, it contains perhaps the WORST description of Akerlof's Market for Lemons study that I have ever encountered (see page 63). The Market for Lemons, just so you know, is a well-known economics paper on market information asymmetry (which is essentially what Freakonomics is about). Akerlof's paper is far less exciting but far more important so if you're actually interested in "Freakonomics" then give that a read.

By the way, have these guys Levitt and Dubner ever taken a writing class? Have their professors never told them how to connect ideas when writing? They lack concision and focus. The writing in this book tends to spout off into tangents or quirky asides that make me want to die. How this book got to be so popular is BEYOND me.

(I am 100% convinced that Levitt and Dubner published this as a book of patchwork theories because no peer-reviewed journal would take them seriously.)