This was fun. Most of his points were interesting and by and large well-researched, albeit some better than others. The main positive characteristic of Freakonomics is the way that he goes through his methodology. By and large, it is really a book about encouraging the lay public to question and to think quantitatively and that's a really, really positive characteristic.

The next most positive thing to say about Freakonomics is that it's well written. Having a co-author that is a writer was a major boon. Although each chapter was adapted from work published in peer-reviewed journals, the chapters have similar voices and lengths and flow into the next chapter.

The detractors are the unevenness of evidence for some claims versus others (for instance, the entire chapter on names, while interesting, lacks the evidence to reach any sort of conclusion.) The other major problem with Freakonomics is the excerpts of the article on Levitt that preface each chapter. These laudatory pieces are very off-putting in a book that is co-authored by Levitt -- toot your horn somewhere else! ( )

Maybe not so rogue after all. Maybe just alternate views, and the use of economic's tools to analyze areas not usually part of econ. It is an interesting book, mostly. ( )

A great book! For those of you who like to think "orthogonally" to the conventional wisdom. ( )

A "rogue" economist goes rogue by applying statistical analysis to sociology.

The premise of the book is that we can all be guilty of making assumptions about causes, and we should instead look at the data. People will often lie, but the data never does.

But, what they fail to acknowledge is that they themselves are constantly making assumptions about the data. The data may not lie, but the interpretation of that data is certainly not objective.

I found myself shaking my head on just about every page at their tendency to oversimplify complex issues. (Apparently, Roe v Wade is the primary reason for the decline in crime during the 90s, for example.)

I can see why this book might be popular: it's a lot of nice stories that are wrapped around a simple answer to a troubling question. It gives the illusion of truth, and the comfort of certainty. Unfortunately, complex issues rarely have simple answers. ( )

I remember when I first read Levitt and Dubner’s Freakonomics (many years ago), in which they present an astounding connection between access to abortion and crime: twenty years after Roe v. Wade, the U.S. crime rate dropped.

Astounding indeed. That men are so surprised by that! I mean, just how clueless are you guys? About the power, the influence, of parenting, about the effect of being forced to be pregnant, to be saddled with a squalling baby you do not want, on an income you do not have, because you’ve got a squalling baby you do not want… What did you guys think would happen in situations like that? The women would get “Mother of the Year” awards for raising psychologically healthy adults?

What I find surprising is that access to abortion isn’t related to infanticide. Pity. Given the Freakonomics boys. ( )