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Freakonomics Has Always Been Dumb
Laziness Is Not Your Fault
New York, 9:12 AM
Fri Dec 11
62 posts in the last 24 hours
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10/23/09
The logic is, if you don't birth criminals, they won't be out on the street causing trouble.
I never saw any comments on the proposition so I guess everybody agrees. #freakonomics
10/24/09
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10/23/09
While it is true by definition that people of above-average intelligence are a minority, the people saying this are usually not part of that minority. Very smart people can sometimes be wrong, yet they remain very smart. More pertinently, this interaction is usually between parties who are both completely average. #freakonomics
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10/24/09
The answer to this question is that there are plenty of really smart people who don't (for instance, 98% of the members National Academy of Sciences are atheists/agnostics). In the same way, there are many smart people who think Levitt and Dubner are experts who are blinded by their own narrow methodology. Most of the detractors are social psychologists, sociologists, neuroscientists, even economists...oh, and Dostoyevsky, too, not the biggest fan of rationalizing human behavior.
10/24/09
I can't fully believe this (mainly I just wanted to be ironic), but I think it carries some weight. The value comes in assigning that weight properly, and that's where I stand with Levitt's use of economics, and some of the other controversial applications of the harder soft-sciences- evolutionary psychology in particular. Even if the majority of the work is demonstrable bullshit, the process is useful and every once in a while, the result is revolutionary. Discrediting an entire line of thinking because of some faulty reasoning or disingenuous evidence is throwing the baby out with the bath water. #freakonomics
10/23/09
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10/23/09
Once there was a drunk who lectured a lady of my acquaintence to that effect, and I asked, "Why?" He had never thought of it. "I don't know why," he said. Everybody says it, so it must be so.
If somebody believes in the Easter Bunny and Santa, we have to hear them out, despite us outgrowing such childhood fables as magical beings, the intelligence of the Common Man, and a free market economy. #freakonomics
10/25/09
10/25/09
#freakonomics
10/23/09
10/23/09
I thought the rise of behavioral and neuro economics would officially shut down this special brand of BS. Or at least make people more skeptical. #freakonomics
10/23/09
How many street call-outs would it take to bring in the amount of cash which slipped through the fingers of Anna Nicole Smith, somebody. #freakonomics
10/23/09
10/23/09
10/23/09
Well yes I mean basically the biggest problem with their shit is it's one big brainless correlation hunt. They find a statistical relationship and then totally misinterpret the causal cues. Economic behavioralism uses empirical data to support correlations and turn them into legitimate causal relationships. Freakonomics says "wouldn't it be fucked up if THIS was why abortions and income are correlated?" in an effort to make a book-selling, inflammatory conclusion with no basis whatsoever.
In their defense, I don't think Leavitt really sees his work as legitimate study - more of a food for thought thing. He's smart enough and credentialed enough to know what real research is. Pareene thinks research is googling a couple people that support his predetermined conclusions. I bet "people that disagree with X" is probably his most common search string, a process he views as a Search For Truth, based on the assumption that other bloggers and media personalities have done the research for him. This is scarcely true, because the media is basically built on people who can't be bothered to actually know fuck-all birthing consensus into fact. #freakonomics
10/23/09
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10/23/09
It's pretty much the same idea that she expressed, though she wrapped it in (pseudo)scientific seriousness.
[vdare.com]
10/23/09
" It is a stereotype that any street named after King is in a rough neighborhood and is to be avoided. Picking up on this stereotype, the comedian Chris Rock has said, "If you find yourself on 'Martin Luther King Boulevard', run!""
[en.wikipedia.org] #freakonomics
10/23/09
10/23/09
Posner enviserated the Kennedy Konspiracy Kooks. Utterly. Case Closed. #freakonomics
10/24/09
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10/23/09
For 500: This would explain what percentage of H & M's sales? #freakonomics
10/23/09
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10/23/09
Scholars such as Levitt, Dubner, Gladwell, and others have made careers of applying statistical methodology to data in fields far beyond their areas of expertise.
Because they lack expert knowledge, they put forth absurd hypotheses and interpretations of the data. It creates a lot of work for experts to sort out in interdisciplinary and popular discourse, and, as you say, it can create stress at cocktail parties.
10/23/09
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10/23/09
Empirical Study is greater than Empirical Study, Poorly Conducted is greater than Rhetoric is greater than Disconnecting ranting is greater than Mythology.
10/23/09
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10/23/09
Or it could just be time for there to be less journalism and more science #freakonomics
10/23/09
10/23/09
I don't think there's a word for that. #freakonomics
10/23/09
10/23/09
Whatever, it's close enough :) #freakonomics