Book Review: Freakonomics

When Freakonomics first came out almost six years ago, I thought that it was an interesting idea but nothing that would ever find its way onto my bookshelf. As an English literature fanatic, I could not see myself wasting time reading about economics. Luckily, a friend of mine read it and said that it wasn't so much about economics but how things are related to each other. Though this didn't win me over, he continued by saying that the authors use pop culture issues to help support their claims and that the writing is quite humorous at times. I borrowed the book and when I ran out of other things to read, I cracked it open. I was AMAZED! This book was far more than economics meets pop culture.

Levitt and Dubner draw in the reader from the beginning of the introduction where they touch upon from the issues that they will discuss later in greater depth. They breeze over the similarities between sumo wrestlers and teachers, they gloss over how abortion has lowered crime rates, and nonchalantly mention that maybe your Realtor isn't getting you the best deal. Each chapter covers a different one of these issues from why drug dealers have to live with their mother's to how the name of a child could have an affect on their later successes. Though the correlations that they draw are fascinating, none of them are outside the realm of possibility.

I was  captivate by this book like I never thought I would be. Some of the conclusions that they came to seemed a bit obvious. For the most part, reading the book made me feel like I was cracking a giant code. Of course there has been some dispute over the findings, but I didn't think that the actual numbers that they used were that important. I believe that the most important aspect of the book is that it makes you rethink any and all correlations. Since reading Freakonomics, I think about cause and effect very differently and I am no longer satisfied with the adage that X must cause Y. Instead, I follow Levitt and Dubner's example in thinking that maybe there is a third variable to which X and Y are responding. Maybe the world should be open to the possibility of there being a Z.

-DLP