There are at least two ways you can read Freakanomics – as a fun and interesting little book that uses data to tell us little things about ourselves and the world. Or, you can see it as econometrics gone apeshit and finally taking over the world. I kind of view it as both.

That said, I really enjoyed reading this. I think Levitt has developed some useful tools that can tell us some interesting stuff about the way little corners of our world are organized. I also think it is a little bit batty to think we can use economic models to prove a causal relationship between abortion laws and crime rates. There might be something there, but in order to come to a conclusion about two subjects so complex, Levitt must have had to control for so many other factors that I doubt his research is all that reliable. In comparison, the section on the economics of the street level drug trade is fascinating and probably close to accurate. The researchers were looking at a relatively small data set, sure, but I think it is still probably tells us at something useful about how that world works.

I guess what I find most interesting about this one is the effect it has had on the culture. Economics is so hot right now. Everyone is into it, it is the undergraduate degree on the rise and plenty of those kids decided they liked economics by reading Levitt’s book. I am not sure if this is a good or a bad thing, but it is definitely a trend we can track, at least in part to this book. In the end this is a fast fun and diverting read, but don’t take it too seriously, cause I am pretty sure some of these finding are bunk.

What a fun random read! Coming into this with no prior knowledge of what it's about is probably what made this so enjoyable. This book will make you think... think about things that may never have crossed your mind before. Once a concept is mentioned it's almost like a "a-ha!" moment leaving you pondering why that thought never popped into your head before. I loved the quirky analysis packed with statistics (who doesn't love stats?). I think the last topic covered was the least enjoyable, but that at moment the author already has you hooked. I'll definitely be checking out more books in the series.

This book is a good example of garbage in, garbage out. The demonstration of critical thinking is good on a superficial level. But that it where the good stuff ends. The background facts used to perform their logical analyses suffer from gaps in relevant facts to downright misinformation. Even worse is the impression given that the background research is astonishingly thorough and accurate. It is not. Don't take their word for it on anything. A quick Google search yields rebuttals from true experts in the various fields that effectively point out flaws in their quotes, facts, and logic.

I love that they promote the ideas of critical thinking. I love that they promote the idea of thorough research and questioning the status quo. I love that they promote use of numbers and statistics to explore ideas in an attempt to find the truth. But I wish that they were providing as good of a demonstration of the principles as they claim to be.

Their conclusions are then presented as irrefutable, as if they are a magic bullet of the truth, rather than a heartfelt (presumably) effort at finding truth, subject to revision based on refined thought or background research. And then there is the assignment of cause to correlation...... In at least some cases, I am not convinced that it is truth that they are after so much as their own agenda (on oh so many levels).

Do as they say but better than they do!

Verbose, repetitive, contradictory: a book of 200-pages that could be condensed to 3-5 pages.

Titles that vary from scintillating to insulting, yet are followed by a chapter that doesn't support the title bar.

Anecdotal stories, mistaken for data or hypothesis. Interpretations and hypotheses are drawn from data that could still be interpreted in multiple ways.

The book claims that it will link the unexpected, but frankly, links the obvious, with many "well duh" moments.

Needless generations of lists that help bulk out the book, but provide little further benefit for study.

Each chapter begins with unnecessary aggrandisement of the author for the statistician, that jars the flow of the book.

Overall, a good demonstration of why "social sciences" are in no way close to being "science", and instead should be termed social philosophy.

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 had high expectations for this book based on all of the hype. It's been on my to-read list for a long time, and after finally got around to reading it, I came away disappointed. The book is mostly a disjointed series of unexpected pairings phrased as questions, like "What do sumo wrestlers and real estate agents have in common?" Most of the questions would never be anything an average person would ask or wonder about. The book was a haphazard compilation of these pairings and odd questions but, to be fair, the authors explicitly state that from the get-go. I found the sections on parenting and naming babies to be the most interesting, with the rest of it being on the dull side.

Many of these questions felt artificially contrived to create a "freaky" spin on economics but it felt forced. That was my chief issue with the book - it felt like it was trying to hard to be edgy and hip, like a geeky kid who tries to impress by looking cool and winds up falling flat.

I found Dan Arielly's book, Predictably Irrational to be much more entertaining with a smoother flow. Arielly's book deals with behavioral economics and delves into the reasons why people make the choices they do, some of which seem rational but aren't and others which seem irrational but aren't. Arielly's book left me with a greater insight into my own choices and the mechanisms at work behind them. Freakonomics left me with a general thought of "Hmm, seemingly unrelated stuff is actually related and vice versa."

For anyone interested in behavior economics presented in a very accessible and entertaining manner, I would recommend Arielly's book over Freakonomics, hands down.

I think I forgot to mention that I finished Freakonomics by Steven D. Levitt and Stephen J. Dubner. I haven’t started the sequel “Superfreakonomics” yet but the first one, well, it started out really interesting but I kind of lost their logic at the end. The book is a collaboration between a “rogue” economist, Levitt, and a writer, Dubner, about trying to discount “common wisdom” and idées reçus with economic analysis and they reach some interesting and also bizarre conclusions. It starts out interesting about cheating which links teachers – perhaps the most interesting study in the book – and sumo wrestlers. The irony here is that in Japan just this year (several years after the publication of the book), the sumo match-fixing has come public and they have even been reduced to giving tickets away for free because the Japanese were so disillusioned with the revelations of corruption and links with the yakuza. Anyway, there are also interesting articles about drug dealers and real estate agents. They also talked about the Klu Klux Klan and mentioned an interesting person, Stetson Kennedy, who infiltrated that organization way back when. What they forgot to mention about him is that he actually ran for president once on an independent ticket for justice – I know that because Billy Bragg and Wilco covered the Woody Guthrie song about Stetson Kennedy on their Mermaid Avenue album (an absolute must if you don’t have it!). Then you hit the controversial section where they blame the sudden drop of crime in the 90s to abortion. I suppose that they could be right and the hypothesis is certainly interesting but I think they were going more for shock value than literary or economic value in the “1 baby equals 8 abortions” – at least I couldn’t really see where they wanted to go with that. Towards the end also, I felt that it starts to wander a bit. I didn’t know what the point they wanted to make actually was in belittling the names that african-americans give to their kids and couldn’t really see the link they were trying to make with grades and stuff. While it is a fascinating read – particularly the first three chapters – the end was a bit, well, confusing to be honest. I hope that Superfreakonomics will keep a more even rhythm.



OK so enough blather. I think Burn Notice might be the funnier alternative here with perhaps a dose of Episodes or Shameless thrown in. Enjoy your weekend, dear reader

This would have been much more impressive had I read it in a timely manner, like say ten years ago when I first wanted to. It does read a tad bit dated, even though this is the updated version, but it's still pretty fascinating, and I think worth reading. I will be reading the second book and checking out the podcast.

[four and a half months later]

And now I have finally come to write this review, and I have forgotten nearly everything about it but the overall feeling I got from it. This will not be a comprehensive review. So.

My feelings, in summary:

*Mostly this was a fun way to apply statistics and math to real life.
*Since the book is now fourteen years old and a lot of it hinges on current cultural norms and references, it doesn't age as well as other books might. I know there was more than this, but the one that stood out in my head was the way he treated rape statistics. (Of course, I remember nothing about the way he treated them, only that it felt wrong to me.)
*There was something in here about realtors? It made me very suspicious to buy property. Also I don't want to buy property because I like having people come fix things for me.
*There was something else in here about gangs and a researcher embedded with them? I don't remember the significance.
*This might be the worst review I have ever written.

It made for a good audiobook, though! So if you're still going to check it out and like listening to things, that is a good way to go.

[3.5 stars, rounded up]

کتاب اقتصاد ناهنجاری های پنهان اجتماعی نوشته استیون لویت به بیان خود نویسنده کتابی ایست که موضوع واحدی ندارد ، و اثر و اصولا ادعایی هم در بهبود کیفیت زندگی مادی انسان ندارد ، اساس کتاب او بر مبنای شک است .
آنچه نویسنده به دنبال آن بوده است پیدا کردن رشته ای مشترک در کاربردهای امور روزمره است ، این که مردم در دنیای واقعی چگونه رفتار می کنند ، مساله ای مهم که آقای لویت تلاش کرده با تلفیقی از علم اقتصاد ، آمار ، جامعه شناسی و رفتار شناسی به آن پی ببرد .
هدف نویسنده در زیر سوال بردن عقل متعارف است ، پرسیدن سوال های بسیار تا هر فرد برای هر موضوعی با تکیه بر هوش و شناخت خود به ایده یا راه حلی برای آن برسد .
اگرچه بیشتر موضوعاتی که استیون لویت به آن ها پرداخته اصل و ریشه غربی دارد و برای مردم در جوامع شرق ممکن است کمی عجیب به نظر برسد اما کتاب در مجموع در تلاش برای نگریستن متفاوت و خارج از عقل متعارف برای خواننده فارغ از هر جامعه یا ملیتی ، نسبتا موفق بوده است .

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.

Interesting, random, unconventional findings! I think it would have been a bit better if the questions linked to a certain theme and he wrote several different books. It's similar to Malcolm Gladwell books.

Answer's questions like:
- Which is more dangerous, a gun or a swimming pool?
- What do schoolteachers and sumo wrestlers have in common?
- Why do drug dealers still live with their moms?
- How much do parents really matter?
- How much does a child's name really matter?
Also information on:
The inner workings of a crack gang. The truth about real-estate agents. The myths of campaign finance. The telltale marks of a cheating schoolteacher. The secrets of the Ku Klux Klan.

I found it interesting that when it really comes down to it; pretty much 80% of us would cheat/commit a crime if we knew that the odds were with us.

It's also interesting the fact of causality and correlations. What causes what? Maybe the cause is just an indication of something else.

Also he brought up it takes skill to ask odd, unconventional, yet logical questions.

James Altucher and Freakonomics co-author Stephen Dubner set up a daily podcast which has 177 Questions of the Day, which answers unconventional questions that is similar to the context of this book
Freakonomics Q of the Day link

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