I finished my copy of the sequel to Freakonomics on a plane on the way back from visiting my wife’s family in Long Island, NY. I like traveling, in that I like going places and seeing and experiencing new things. I don’t like the actual act of traveling. I don’t like all the waiting involved with flying. I’ve never been able to sleep on planes for some reason – not even on the extremely long flights to Europe. A couple days after flying, it’s not uncommon for me to wake up with a cold.
One thing that makes flying bearable is the opportunity to read without many distractions. My wife usually goes to sleep soon after take off (sometimes before – the woman has a gift for sleep). Such was my situation with a half read copy of Super Freakonomics.
This is exactly the type of book I like to read. It’s the kind of book that challenges all the things you’ve come to accept as cannon. It’s sort of a new genre of bestseller – the book of sociological studies that isn’t really about anything, but has lots of loosely connected and interesting stuff.
The first book was surrounded by controversy. Controversy is almost a necessary marketing tool for a book like this. You need a little controversy to get people talking about whether or not your right at dinner parties, coffee shops, and wherever else people get together to gab. One chapter of the first book, in particular, created a tremendous amount of buzz. That chapter is what I would now refer to as the “abortion chapter.”
If you haven’t read the book (and you should) the hypothesis offered is that the dramatic fall in crime in the 1990s was due to the fact that it was found to be unconstitutional to outlaw abortion. That is, women could legally decide to have an abortion. I’m not going to make Levitt’s case here. I will say that it’s an interesting one. The data is very compelling, and he makes a dispassionate, economic and believable argument.
Like the first book, this book has been generating a healthy amount of buzz. Once again, one particular chapter has been at the forefront of the controversy. Not the chapter about prostitution, which I found fascinating. Not the chapter that proclaims that the high condom fail rate in India is due to the small genitalia of Indian men. It’s the chapter about global warming.
I’ll let you read the book, but just so you understand a little about the context, the book doesn’t dispute that global warming is a very real thing. In fact, it proclaims that there are basically people with any credibility in the scientific community that don’t accept that global warming is a very real threat. What they challenge, is whether the facts commonly associated with global warming are truly, well, facts.
The question is not whether they spoke with leading experts. The controversy is about whether they cherry picked quotes in an effort to manipulate what the leading experts were trying to say. I can’t say. Only the experts know whether the quotes attributed to them accurately reflect their beliefs. I don’t know that they’ve come forward publicly and said otherwise.
In any case, it’s a fascinating book. I enjoyed the first book, and I enjoyed this one as much if not more. I have two criticisms, and perhaps they are minor ones:
1. The titles of chapters – The titles, have very little connection to what the chapter is actually about. For example, one of the chapters is called “How Is a Street Prostitute Like a Department Store Santa?” Sounds fascinating, doesn’t it? Actually, it was. But the chapter was completely about street prostitutes. A single sentence explains how they’re alike. This is just a matter of marketing. It doesn’t hurt anything, but after seeing it repeatedly throughout the book, it annoyed me a smidgen.
2. Studies – The most annoying thing that ever (maybe not ever) happens to me in arguments is if I bring up a study (I do this sometimes in a feeble attempt to bolster my credibility) and someone tells me, “you can make a study say anything.” The problem is, this is at least partially true. You can create a confirmation bias that’s difficult to overcome. It’s difficult to mirror real world results in a lab environment, because it’s difficult to consider every variable. None of those things are my problem with this book. My problem with all books like this is, in my experience, if you go back and read the papers the book is based upon, the conclusion of the paper usually isn’t represented in the book. I’m not saying that’s the case with this book. I haven’t read all the underlying papers. But it’s something to keep in mind. If something really seems difficult to believe, I would suggest going back and reading the underlying paper that’s been referenced. As with anything else, be a filter, not a sponge (to quote one of Stephen Chbosky’s characters). In conclusion, read this book. I’d love to hear what you thought about it. Thanks for reading.
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