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  • Two quotes from the last chapter:

    "The most likely result of having read this book is a simple one: you may find yourself asking a lot of questions. Many of them will lead to nothing. But some will produce answers that are interesting, even surprising."

    "You might become more skeptical o ... Continue

    Two quotes from the last chapter:

    "The most likely result of having read this book is a simple one: you may find yourself asking a lot of questions. Many of them will lead to nothing. But some will produce answers that are interesting, even surprising."

    "You might become more skeptical of the conventional wisdom; you may begin looking for hints as to why 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"

    

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• ― disturbingtheuniverse said on May 27, 2006 about the Others edition| Add your feedback

• 1 of 1 person find this helpful

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  • Interesting application of economic theory to things that it would not seem to apply to. He makes a few pretty wild leaps to conclusions that are interesting but probably not terribly accurate.

    

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• ― Kent Barrett said on Aug 3, 2008 about the Others edition| Add your feedback

• 1 of 1 person find this helpful

  • Reminded me that (1) correlation doesn't equal causation and (2) just because a piece of data is measurable, that doesn't mean it is the right thing to measure.

    

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• ― jbaglio said on Apr 18, 2007 about the Hardcover edition| Add your feedback

• .

  • Mom got me this for Christmas. I had read so much about it on the economics blogs (Marginal Revolution and the like) that I had to get it. It did not disappoint, a fun read.

    

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• ― Leebeck said on Feb 28, 2008 about the Hardcover edition| Add your feedback

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  • In local public library.

    

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• ― Nathan Rein said on Feb 27, 2008 about the Others edition| Add your feedback

• .

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  • The authors in this book use statistical means to explain some very weird questions (which always turn out very meaningful)

    Conventional wisdom when is tested under the rigor of statistics sometimes shows very surprising conclusion.

    Finally, it's always good to remember the difference be ... Continue

    The authors in this book use statistical means to explain some very weird questions (which always turn out very meaningful)

    Conventional wisdom when is tested under the rigor of statistics sometimes shows very surprising conclusion.

    Finally, it's always good to remember the difference between casuality and correlation in this complicated world.

    

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• ― Spaceboy said on Sep 18, 2007 about the Others edition| Add your feedback

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? What kind of impact did Roe v. Wade have on violent crime?

These may not sound like typical questions for an economist to ask. But Steven D. Levitt is not a typical economist. He is a much-heralded young scholar who studies the riddles of everyday life-from cheating and crime to sports and child-rearing — and whose conclusions regularly turn the conventional wisdom on its head. He usually begins with a mountain of data and a simple, unasked question. Some of these questions concern life-and-death issues; others have an admittedly freakish quality. Thus the new field of study contained in this book: Freakonomics.

Through forceful storytelling and wry insight, Levitt and co-author Stephen J. Dubner show that economics is, at root, the study of incentives - how people get what they want, or need, especially when other people want or need the same thing. In Freakonomics, they set out to explore the hidden side of — well, everything. 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.

What unites all these stories is a belief that 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. Steven Levitt, through devilishly clever and clear-eyed thinking, shows how to see through all the clutter.

Freakonomics establishes this unconventional premise: if morality represents how we would like the world to work, then economics represents how it actually does work. It is true that readers of this book will be armed with enough riddles and stories to last a thousand cocktail parties. But Freakonomics can provide more than that. It will literally redefine the way we view the modern world.

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