Did you read "Freakonomics" by any chance? Such an awesome book.

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Originally posted by The17sss Did you read "Freakonomics" by any chance? Such an awesome book.

I've read disdain for that recently, particularly on its supposed exaggeration (someone put it as the worst non-fiction work ever), although I have no fucking idea as I've not read it. I plan on reading it myself soon.

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When a wise man gives thee better counsel, give me mine again: I would have none but knaves follow it, since a fool gives it.

quote:

Originally posted by The17sss Did you read "Freakonomics" by any chance? Such an awesome book.

No but I will. Can't wait to hear economic theory being applied to street gangs and crack cocaine.

Haha... it gives lots of intetesting alternative perspectives for sure. Some of which, like the possible correlation between abortion becomimg legal and crime rates noticeably dropping in urban areas 15-20 years later are hard to ignore. They do a good job using factual data to draw conclusions... not so much saying their conclusions are fact. Either way, very interesting stuff.

enrique, you forgot to log out krypton.

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Freakonomics was pretty good but fucking shame Levitt's best work imo was left out of the book entirely, a decision I still can't understand (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steven_Levitt#LoJack, certainly less sensational than economics applied to crime syndicates but still). Also no fucking way was it the best work of non-fiction ever.

Check out Dan Areily if you like freakonomics, he's got a new one out but his first book (Predictably Irrational) just came out in paperback.

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I know someone starting college this year..undecided major, and the school is making EVERY freshman read Freakanomics. Does anyone know why they would do this? This is a major state university and it seems odd that they would make this a prereq for all freshmen. Is the book that damn good? What relevance could it have to people with an undeclared major?

Hah, I went on 4chan's literature board and a thread about Freakonomics was at the top.

According to Anonymous:

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they're the economic equivalent of popular science or psychology, and are thus pretty inaccurate. i find it particularily ironic that they make such a song and dance about other economists not thinking outside the box, or making mistakes, when as much of freakonomics makes the same mistakes with assumptions or omissions in order to make their point. for a book that proclaims to look at the hidden side of everything, most of their results are either glaringly obvious (why do drug dealers live with their moms? because they're poor - no shit...) or else wouldn't stand up to scrutiny.

Its wikipedia article even has a section for refutations to the book.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freakonomics

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Freakonomics claimed that it was possible to "tease" out the effect of extra police on crime by analysing electoral cycles. The evidence behind these claims was shown to be due partly to a programming error. McCrary stated "While municipal police force size does appear to vary over state and local electoral cycles ... elections do not induce enough variation in police hiring to generate informative estimates of the effect of police on crime."

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Don't mean to derail the thread. I just like discussing books (even those I haven't read yet)

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When a wise man gives thee better counsel, give me mine again: I would have none but knaves follow it, since a fool gives it.

Properly using statistics and their evaluation, as well as the difference between correlation and causality is something loads of scientists and basically all the idiots talking about their findings have failed at.

This explains it quite nicely:

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Then stop coloring and visit Meat187's mix archive!

reminds me of terence mckenna's garbage