Analysis
Freakonomics tries to turn the scalpel of the analytical and statistical methods intrinsic to Economics onto questions that the authors feel do not have definitive answers. Mostly because no one thought to ask the questions that would allow us (the world at large, not Economics students) to solve the problems that would lead to the answers, the authors feel.
Because of this, Freakonomics is attended by all the problems of the so-called soft sciences. The data, and the conclusions often seem susceptible to multiple interpretations. There is a relatively large “eye of the beholder” problem with books like Freakonomics, compounded by the authors’ failure to provide (or intentional decision to omit) the data from which they draw these conclusions. Because the data is hidden, it’s difficult for the reader to look behind the curtain and determine if he would come to similar conclusions. We can’t say if they’re right. All we can do is say whether we believe them or not. Not if we agree. Faith.
Freakonomics is of those books where if you agree with the conclusions then you say: Exactly. But if you don’t, you have to take it on faith that the authors are correct and you aren’t. There doesn’t seem to be any method to debunking this, other than to call out inconsistencies. I am troubled by this, it’s almost like turning science into a religion, rather than the explanation of phenomenon that we need Science to be so we can be better, or build the better world.
That being said, Freakonomics sometimes seems to come to inconsistent conclusions. Or at least ones that definitely seem susceptible to dispute.
Freakonomics concludes that more police officers leads to less crime. They come to this conclusion they say by analyzin...
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...nd know yourself, you need not fear the result of a hundred battles.” Tzu, Sun. Sun Tzu: The Art of War. [S.l.]: Pax Librorum Pub. H, 2009. And “The best victory is when the opponent surrenders of its own accord before there are any actual hostilities... It is best to win without fighting.” (Tzu, 2009)
Fate apparently was an excellent student. I mean it certainly can’t be argued that Fate isn’t inordinately successful at what she does. Moreover, according to Freakonomics (and the data) most of us never escape her machinations. Or as the Freakonomics data would likely show: Fate’s parents were well educated, had many books in the home, came from a high socioeconomic background. Makes you wonder what life would be like for all of us if Fate instead had grown up in the projects, or in the East in some poverty stricken hovel, and her parents had named her Karma.
Freakonomics is an economist’s viewpoint on the events and issues that we encounter and hear about every day. Levitt uses his many years of experience as an economist to address topics ranging from abortion to the power of information. He looks at the statistics behind each topic and makes an informed analysis, generally not following popular belief about it. Levitt foresees and counters arguments that people may have against what he is stating. His counter arguments are filled with data and statistics to make them rock solid and very hard to dispute. Levitt’s approach on the world is very different from the average person’s, he looks at everything from what statistics and data tells him. He states “The conventional wisdom is often wrong…”
Summary In chapter one of Freakonomics, the beginning portion of the chapter discusses information and the connection it shares with the Ku Klux Klan and real-estate agents. The Ku Klux Klan was founded right after the Civil War, in order to persecute and subdue the slaves that were newly freed. The popularity of the Klan increased in the early 20th century, around the time of World War I. In the late 19th century, the Klan had only discriminated, persecuted, and subdued Blacks, but in the 20th century they did these things to Blacks, Jews, and Gypsies.
Renowned economist, Steven D. Levitt, and well-known journalist, Stephen J. Dubner, in their collaboration of the book, Freakonomics: A Rogue Economist Explores the Hidden Side of Everything, write in a mostly inoffensive style about extremely controversial topics. Levitt’s and Dubner’s purpose is to inform readers of frequently disputed topics from a purely economic standpoint. They use second person to directly speak to their readers, an impartial tone to show an unusual perspective, and contrast to provide both sides of an argument.
Rutkin, Aviva. "Policing The Police." New Scientist 226.3023 (2015): 20-21. Academic Search Premier. Web. 17 Oct. 2016.
...re a lot of bad things, but in my opinion I think economists expect too much out of the US government.
The Art of War is a treatise written in Ancient China that discusses the most and least effective military strategies for successful warfare according to Sun Tzu, a military general whose existence is still debated to this day. While not every military commander in the history of warfare has read it, the strategies provided can be used as a way to assess said commanders and the effectiveness of their campaigns. In Sun Tzu 's own words, “The general that hearkens to my counsel and acts upon it, will conquer: let such a one be retained in command! The general that hearkens not to my counsel nor acts upon it, will suffer defeat:--let such a one be dismissed!”1 This paper will discuss various iconic battles throughout history and how closely the leading commanders of each army followed the advice of Sun Tzu. Despite the fact that Sun Tzu lived hundreds of years before many of these battles took place, the
Any hypothesis, Gould says, begins with the collection of facts. In this early stage of a theory development bad science leads nowhere, since it contains either little or contradicting evidence. On the other hand, Gould suggests, testable proposals are accepted temporarily, furthermore, new collected facts confirm a hypothesis. That is how good science works. It is self-correcting and self-developing with the flow of time: new information improves a good theory and makes it more precise. Finally, good hypotheses create logical relations to other subjects and contribute to their expansion.
This chapter's main idea is that the study of economics is the study of incentives. We find a differentiation between economic incentives, social incentives and moral incentives. Incentives are described in a funny way as "means of urging people to do more of a good thing or less of a bad thing", and in this chapter we find some examples public school teachers in Chicago, sumo wrestling in Japan, take care center in Israel and Paul Feldman's bagel business of how incentives drive people and most of the time the conventional wisdom turns to be "wrong" when incentives are in place.
Because of budget constraints, the study only used one beat to collect data on the effects of increasing police patrol. Even though money was an issue, the experiment could have yielded better data by repeating the experiment multiple times to see if the data they collected would be reliable. The experiment also took place during the winter. The report of the study even noted that there was some evidence that crime activity levels declined, just as street activity does, because of colder weather. Although the design of the study contained weaknesses, some of the methods used by the researchers worked well for this type of study. One of the strengths of this experiment was the different methods used to acquire illegal guns in the beat. By using a variation of ways to seize illegal weapons in the “hot spot,” it allowed officers to increase their chances of finding more illegal guns. Using different methods of search also could have led to greater number of potential offenders to know that officers were looking for illegal weapons and refrained from offending. Another strength of the study includes the relatively inexpensive method to try to answer their hypothesis. Increasing police patrol is one of the more inexpensive methods and it did manage to decrease the number of gun crimes and homicide in the
Messenger, E., Gooch, J., & Seyler, D. U. (2011). Arguing About Science. Argument! (pp. 396-398). New York, NY: Mcgraw-Hill Co..
...age. Levitt explores this passage with the same approach that he uses to explore the hidden side of many other such examples in society that have been overlooked and accepted as conventional wisdom for far too long. Take the parents who feel confident that they have made the right decision to forbid their child to play at a friend?s house whose family owns a gun, but allows their child to play at a friend?s house that has a pool. Levitt shows that the child is about ten thousand times more likely to drown in the swimming pool than in a gun accident, but that the violent conventional mindset associated with guns wrongly portrays their potential of causing death. Through these examples, Levitt establishes Freakonomics as a way by which the reader should live their life, never totally accepting something until every stone has been upturned, eventually exposing its hidden
ROBINSON, Joan (1965b). “The General Theory after Twenty-Five Years”. Collected Economic Papers, vol. III, pp. 100-2.
...that even with the science of economics it also has its limits. They systematically do, and note this so that they leave nothing unexplored which may destroy their credibility, in turn making their claims loose.
Sun Tzu believe a winner came to the fight knowing already what the outcome would be because he known his adversary weaknesses and how to take advantage of it.
A traditional analysis gives a mistakenly high value to dollars in the future, money in the future is given the same value as money today; but in reality, money in the fu...