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|  | Authors: Steven D. Levitt, Stephen J. Dubner
Publisher: Harper Perennial
List Price: $15.99
Buy New: $8.73
as of 11/21/2009 13:09 CST details
You Save: $7.26 (45%)
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Seller: treebeardbooks
Rating:  1697 reviews
Sales Rank: 69
Languages: English (Original Language), English (Unknown), English (Published)
Media: Paperback
Edition: 1
Pages: 352
Number Of Items: 1
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.6
Dimensions (in): 8 x 5.2 x 0.7
ISBN: 0060731338
Dewey Decimal Number: 330
EAN: 9780060731335
ASIN: 0060731338
Publication Date: September 1, 2009
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
Condition: Brand New, Fast and Professional Shipping (no shipping to: APO, AK, HI, PR as standard mail to these locations takes 4+ weeks).
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| Customer Reviews:
Showing reviews 16-20 of 1697
A good read October 21, 2009
Michael Nielson (Willamette Valley, Oregon)
Freakonomics is a whirlwind tour of the unexpected. It definitely changed a few of my preconceived notions of a few things (Drug Dealers especially). As a result, I started seeing things more as a function of economy than people's will. It's a fun read, one caveat may be that the authors skim the concept of correlation vs. causality. They really gloss over it in the Roe v. Wade chapter. All things considered, it was a light read, I really enjoy Malcolm Gladwell books, and this was in the same vein.
 SuperFraudonomics October 17, 2009
Passerby (Texas)
3 out of 24 found this review helpful
The attempts to censor reviews of the new book Superfreakonomics have been explained. On the way to the printing press, the authors' anti-global warming data was debunked. "Global Cooling" is a myth based on a lie the authors tried to rush into the public disinformation machine. And Amazon helped them.
 Nice collection of short stories October 4, 2009
Bas Vodde (Singapore)
1 out of 4 found this review helpful
Freakonomics came highly recommended from a friend thus I decided to pick it up and actually read it. In all honestly, I was disappointed. Not that the book is bad or badly written, not at all! It is a funny and well written book. The reason for my disappointment is that it gave me fun stories, but not any major insight (other than, you need to study the fact before drawing a conclusion). I simply had expected more.
Freakonomics is a book written by a journalist and a economist. It dives into small facts in life and shares the conclusions people have made. Then it gathers data, analysis the data and shows that they draw a different conclusion. Their conclusion is often going against what people commonly assume and are sometimes surprising.
The first chapter looks at measuring performance of school teachers and how that can lead to cheating teachers. Similarly it explores cheating in sumo wrestling. The explores the KKK history and shows how making their 'secrets' known to everyone (making all information available) eventually destroys or minimized the KKK. Then it makes a link to real estate agents and show that their incentives are not set up in such a way that they would deliver the 'best' deal.
The third chapter tackles drug dealer economics. With data collected from a friend of one of the authors, they map out the drug dealing company and show that people low in the company hierarchy do not make a lot of money from it and thus they are often still living with their mom. Chapter four looks at the drop in crime in the US in the 90s and challenges some of the common reasons (e.g. the broken windows theory) for this and finds a new and surprising cause of the drop of crime...
The last two chapters look at parenting. How some parents are over protective and make decisions based on assumptions and not on facts. And what names to select for your child and whether it has any influence at all in how your child will be treated.
The book was amusing and fun. Its well written and contains nice stories. Yet, I wouldn't quickly recommend this book as it lacked major insight. Its like an interesting novel. From that perspective, it was pretty good and did what a good novel ought to do. 3 out of 5 stars, the book does what it should do but didn't provide any ah-ha moments.
 Outstanding October 1, 2009
RVD (Duluth, MN)
0 out of 2 found this review helpful
This is a very thought provoking book that is appropriate for those interested in consumer behavior or even data analysis. It provides a fascinating insight for managers to see how you can find data in the most unusual and unexpected places to draw implications for a variety of business decisions.
Garbage. September 29, 2009
H. Taylor (NJ, USA)
11 out of 25 found this review helpful
I had heard a lot about this book, and was thrilled when I finally found it in paperback. I am a Political Science student in college, and am in my third year of Statistics courses. I have read many an intense academic study from a peer-reviewed journal on what seems to be a boring topic, until correctly applied statistics reveal an interesting twist.
This book was a complete and utter let-down.
There's no math in this book. There's no statistics, either. And that is not a good thing in a book that claims to be about economics. They don't even bother trying to explain any statistics, and what they do, the authors incorrectly apply. I don't feel like going into specifics, but you can read the other reviews here: they assume that correlation implies causation, they don't control, they don't consider alternatives. It's just plain bad work, and is often painfully wrong.
As a Poli Sci major, I've taken many courses on Criminal Justice, and the section on abortion in this book just made me want to scream. This is the first section, and I actually had to set the book down and stop reading. Actual studies of crime from this time period have shown that while public perception of crime increased, the actual crime rates remained relatively stable proportional to the population. It was more of a media problem than an actual problem. In addition, the biggest problem with low-income minority mothers is that they keep their children. They can't afford or lack the resources to get abortions. This in fact perpetuates the cycle of poverty and increases crime - low-income minority MOTHERS are arguably the biggest problem the criminal justice system faces. The people Americans think are (or should) be getting abortions aren't. Beyond that, there are a million much more plausible and truthful conclusions to be made about the ties between abortions (or the lack thereof) and crime (or the lack thereof). But Levitt and Dubner never pause to give these the time of day.
There's a million other things wrong with that entire section, and so on, throughout every section of the book. And I do mean EVERY SECTION OF THE BOOK. Which is why I'm keeping this short: because if I wanted to, I'd go through every page of this damn thing and explain why it's wrong.
It's shoddily done, poorly explained, and written solely for the lowest common denominator: the person who wouldn't know enough about statistics or the topics at hand to realize the glaring mistakes. It's garbage.
The first thing you learn in statistics is that you can take the data and twist it to say whatever you want. Levitt and Dubner have taken it, leaped to conclusions, and dumbed down the data to mean one thing: a blockbuster for them, and nothing of substance for the readers of America.
If you're interested in statistics, take your time to go read the real thing. I promise you, it is not that hard. You'd be surprised to know how easy it really is to read the actual studies, and it's so worthwhile. Don't waste your money on this book.
Showing reviews 16-20 of 1697
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