SuperFreakonomics

I recently finished the sequel to the first book reviewed in the most recent instantiation of this blog. SuperFreakonomics by Steven D. Levitt and Stephen J. Dubner is an enjoyable read, but is a sequel in a real sense of the word.

This book feels more like a set of case studies than the first book which had more emphasis on theory and motivation. By reading the first book, one gets the direction they are going and can see more clearly what is going on in this second book. The case studies are more interesting (and controversial) than the first book for sure, but let me strongly encourage you to read Freakonomics before embarking on SuperFreakonomics.

As you can see on the cover, the subtitle presents us three of the interesting case studies they consider in this book. All of the information in the book is, at the least, thought provoking, but for the sake of brevity (and to keep from ruining the book for you), I'm going to stick to the subtitled ones. I'll touch on these in reverse order.

After the multiple terrorist attacks (and attempted attacks) around the globe, governments have become much more concerned with trying to stop terrorists before they attack. They have tried to come up with a logarithm that will accurately determine who is and is not a terrorist before they perform an act of terrorism. Among the different things considered in the logarithm is whether or not the individual has life insurance. Common sense would tell us that if you knew you were going to kill yourself, there would be little point in owning life insurance. Come to find out, this is a key indicator as to the likelihood that someone might be a terrorist. So if you're a terrorist and want to be successful, buy life insurance. Now, before you think that they've just disclosed a huge national security secret, they make it clear that there is an indicator that is by far the most reliable indicator to determine whether someone is a terrorist or not, and they do not even think of disclosing it. But, it is true that if you are a suicide bomber and you don't want to get caught, buying life insurance is one way that may make it a bit harder to catch you before you do it.

Now one may legitimately wonder, what in the world is going on with patriotic prostitutes? Sadly, the idea of a patriotic prostitute was minimally explained, just pointing to the fact that in a park in Chicago, the number of prostitutes available during the Fourth of July weekend is drastically increased (as are the prices) over a normal time. Basically, when there is a greater demand for prostitutes and a greater amount to be earned, these incentives lead to some women being a prostitute for one weekend of the year and making out really well. Once again, the drive of incentives that we saw in the first book comes up here. They say some other really interesting things about prostitution (and the correlation--not causation--between the decrease in the number of women prostitutes and the decrease of American education), but I'll let you read the book to learn those things.

The last part of the subtitle is by far the most controversial. They are not arguing that the earth is cooling and working with the assumption that the earth is warming and humans are behind it.* They are talking about possible ways (if needed) to help cool the earth temporarily in order to allow time to develop efficient alternative fuel sources and fend off the rising oceans and destroyed coastline that would come about from that happening. Needless to say, the solution offered is incredibly interesting, quite affordable (it is projected to cost significantly less than Al Gore's foundation spends each year just on trying to educate people on global warming), apparently safe for the environment, could quickly be completed, temporary, adjustable, and easily reversible. I won't ruin it for you, but it really caught me off-guard why I had never heard of this as a possibility, particularly given how bad the situation we're in is explained to be.

Much of this book focuses on rethinking conventional wisdom, or at least encouraging us to be willing to question things that we do not understand. The heavy emphasis on incentives found in the first book is weaker in the sequel, but still underlies a lot of the thinking. However, the ultimate focus is that we should be willing to question the status quo, but question in a way that digs for something deeper, not just simply to be contrarian, as some have accused these men as being.

I think both Freakonomics and SuperFreakonomics are books that would be good to read along with a book like The Sacredness of Questioning Everything by David Dark, particularly in an Introduction to Philosophy class. I'm in the process of putting final touches on a syllabus for Introduction to Philosophy that would be called "Questioning Questions" or "Doubting Doubt", but the focus would be on searching for truth, and the role that questions and doubt play in coming to truth. We would read Dark's book, some Platonic dialogues, Descartes' Meditations, something from Kierkegaard or Nietzsche, and end by looking at some controversial issue, encouraging the students to work through the issue of that semester from a questioning mindset, rather than as an attempt to prove what they already think or disprove what they already disagree with. I think a chapter or two from either Freakonomics or SuperFreakonomics would fit perfectly into a class like that.

Regardless, I recommend that you read Freakonomics, and once you've read that (or if you already have), to read SuperFreakonomics. You may not agree with everything they say. You may not change your mind on anything. But at the very least, you'll be challenged to at least reevaluate why you see the world as you do.

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*Disclaimer: I personally believe that whether the earth is warming or cooling, and whether humans had anything to do with that, we were created to be stewards of God's creation, regardless whether there are or are not negative consequences for irresponsible action and whether we can or cannot make a positive difference on the problem of climate change by changing the way we live. In other words, as Christians, whether the problem of climate change is real or an illusion, we should always be living in a way that takes our original role in creation seriously.

Freakonomics

I'm going to do much more writing this year. I am also going to do more reading. I hope that these two statements would be true, even if I wasn't writing my dissertation this year. On this blog, I want to write up thoughts about what I'm reading, things that might show up in my dissertation, and things that have nothing at all to do with my dissertation.

Speaking of my dissertation, I'm defending my prospectus next Wednesday afternoon, so a week from now, I plan to be ABD (All But Dissertation)!

The first write-up of the year is Steven Levitt and Stephen Dubner's Freakonomics. This book originally came out in October 2006, but was a gift this year for Christmas twice.* I thoroughly enjoyed the book, as the writers search to question conventional wisdom on a range of topics. They are great writers, writing in a fun, accessible way, while dealing with topics that are normally considered unaccessible by non-academics.

They state that conventional wisdom (according to a guy named Galbraith) "must be simple, convenient, comfortable and comforting." If you look closely at that definition, the word "true" is nowhere to be found. It was interesting to watch them address some of our ideas (like a house with a gun is more dangerous than a house with a pool) and show how conventional wisdom is not based on facts as much as it is on risk avoidance. Risk is defined as "hazard + outrage", in that when we think of risk, we're not just thinking about the hazard involved, but also the outrage that is felt if that event were to occur. So when we think about a child drowning in a pool, we feel sad, but not necessarily outraged. However, when we think about a child dying in a gun accident, the horror drastically increases the outrage we feel. So even though a child is 100 times more likely to drown in a pool (about 1 in 10,000 chance) than in a gun accident (about 1 in a million), we work much harder to increase gun safety and feel much more leery about sending children to a house with a gun than we do to institute things that would drive down the number of children who drown in a pool each year. The authors argue not that taking a stand against guns in houses is wrong, but rather, the reasons most people hold for taking such a stand are misguided.

The authors are very careful to discuss the difference between a strong correlation and causation, and tend to stick to strong correlations more often than not. However, time and time again we see that conventional wisdom, while it may feel good, is not always true.

I'm wondering how (or if) this book could fit into an Introduction to Philosophy class. I'm presently looking at using David Dark's The Sacredness of Questioning Everything in a class next spring as a way of encouraging students to realize that we must be willing to ask questions, even questions that may initially seem ridiculous, if we are going to arrive at truth (and that we should always work to arrive at truth). It seems like Freakonomics would be a book that could do a similar job.

Regardless, Freakonomics is a great book that I would recommend to most anyone! The authors published a sequel (Superfreakonomics) that came out this past fall (and which I ordered for myself on Amazon.com today for $12). If you want a book that will make you think and laugh at the same time, Freakonomics is for you.

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*My wife and mother-in-law both independently came up with the idea of getting it for me for Christmas. However, by the time my mother-in-law gave it to me, I was almost done with the copy from my wife.