Freakshow

Freakonomics...
Well, is it ok to admit that I may be more excited about reading Philip’s post about this book than I am about writing my own?  Comes as a shocker many, I know, right?  But seriously, I heard he was working on an outline at some point. 

This post will by no means be outlined and the later it gets and the earlier I realize I have to wake up, it may not be coherent at all – but I do have a few thoughts rolling around in my head that I might try to translate onto this screen.  I will start by saying that these thoughts were of course provoked and inspired on the balcony of Square Books with my fabulous intern friends. I like to think of them as colleagues.

One of my favorite points that was brought up is that this whole book is set up to provide a reasoning for many things: how the KKK came to an end, why crime rates lowered in the early 90s (?), why teachers cheat on their students standardized tests and how to detect if they are doing so… the list goes on.  Much of the evidence provided for why or how these things happened sets out to disprove common held theory – theory that was arrived upon by EXPERTS.   Experts as in the people who study a very narrow field of information and over the course of time have looked at all the contributing factors affecting that very narrow field and have reached very specific conclusions.  So it makes perfect sense then that the authors of this book can dispel these conclusions and very easily in two paragraphs or three convince the reader of some completely different reasoning – and because of their smooth talking no one ever questions anything… WRONG. 

Well, ok, I might not ever question anything because hey, it’s summer and sometimes I just want to read a book without thinking critically or analyzing everything to the smallest detail.  But thanks to the brilliant people whom I somehow have the same job as, I can see this book a little more objectively and realize that although it is a fun read… the identification of incentives don’t quite provide an explanation for everything.  I mean, look at our conversations during the last book club – that wasn’t so easy, now was it?