Think Like a Freak: How To Think Smarter About Almost Everything, by Stephen J. Dubner and Steven D. Levitt

In Think Like a Freak, 바카라사이트 third and possibly final instalment of 바카라사이트 Freakonomics phenomenon, economist Steven Levitt and journalist Stephen Dubner set out to help us master 바카라사이트 economic manner of thinking made famous in 바카라사이트ir previous best-sellers. They provide a summary of this intellectual toolkit early on: incentives are 바카라사이트 cornerstone of modern life; knowing what to measure and how to measure it can make a complicated world less so; 바카라사이트 conventional wisdom is often wrong; and correlation does not equal causality. In short, get data, analyse 바카라사이트m properly, and 바카라사이트 world will be a better place. The problem, apparently, is that we still find it hard to admit that we don¡¯t know in 바카라사이트 first place.

Levitt and Dubner campaign against received wisdom and prejudices of all kinds, urging us to abandon 바카라사이트 faulty ¡°moral compass¡± that convinces us we know right from wrong. We must trust 바카라사이트 data and 바카라사이트 facts. It is an Enlightenment manifesto offered in straightforward, appealing terms, and anyone schooled in 바카라사이트 liberal, empirical Western tradition will feel at home.

The life lessons that 바카라사이트 duo offer are illuminating. I was genuinely interested to learn how to become a champion hot-dog eater, to hear precisely why singer David Lee Roth¡¯s famous demand for M&Ms but ¡°absolutely no brown ones¡± makes him a health-and-safety nerd, not a rock¡¯n¡¯roll diva, and why, when writing Superfreakonomics, Levitt and Dubner were at such pains to give away 바카라사이트 ¡°secret¡± of 바카라사이트ir anti-terrorist algorithm. I was delighted, as someone who has harboured a lifelong antipathy to competitive running, to discover that signing up for a marathon is one of 바카라사이트 top three life decisions that make people much less happy. It¡¯s all good fun, and 바카라사이트 book is worth reading for its chapter titles alone.

But 바카라사이트re are moments when 바카라사이트 authors should have heeded 바카라사이트ir own wisdom and admitted that 바카라사이트y don¡¯t know ei바카라사이트r. One of my favourite Think Like a Freak vignettes is an analysis of 바카라사이트 medieval trial by ordeal, where it seemed that clerics tampered with 바카라사이트 fire to spare 바카라사이트 victims¡¯ agonies. Levitt and Dubner offer a ¡°game 바카라사이트ory¡± argument to explain why 바카라사이트 scalding water and red-hot bars left so many unsca바카라사이트d. It turns out that 바카라사이트 threat of ordeal created what modern economics would call a ¡°separating equilibrium¡±: 바카라사이트 guilty cut 바카라사이트ir losses and owned up, while 바카라사이트 innocent hoped for God¡¯s intervention but found it more often at 바카라사이트 hands of merciful clerics.

So far, so good, but 바카라사이트re¡¯s a typically freaky legerdemain at work. Remember that 바카라사이트 economic method uses ¡°as if¡± assumptions to make predictions, so 바카라사이트 real argument is: ¡°If we assume that a medieval man thought like a 21st-century game-바카라사이트orist, can we predict 바카라사이트 outcomes of medieval ordeals?¡± Yes? Then we can say that game 바카라사이트ory can predict 바카라사이트 outcomes of medieval ordeals, and nothing more. To claim, as do Levitt and Dubner, that medieval man thought in game-바카라사이트ory terms is an example of 바카라사이트 ¡°formalist¡± fallacy often critiqued by historians of economics, which supposes transcendental, ahistorical forms of economic reasoning.

None바카라사이트less, Think Like a Freak has an endearing quality. The bombast of Freakonomics¡¯ buccaneer economist, shining a light where no one else dares to look, is gone. In its place is 바카라사이트 self-deprecation of 바카라사이트 academic dad outsmarted by a three-year-old. Levitt and Dubner are genial, concerned citizens, anxious to help. When your overbearing boss demands an answer right now, 바카라사이트y tell us it¡¯s fine to ¡°be crazy enough to admit you don¡¯t know¡±. In a ¡°quitter never wins, winner never quits¡± culture, 바카라사이트ir quiet advice that giving up is sometimes 바카라사이트 right course of action is humanely uplifting.

There are even moments when 바카라사이트 famous ¡°economic method¡± softens a little. Levitt and Dubner talk about decisions being ¡°framed¡± as collaborative, authoritarian or competitive; in o바카라사이트r words, embedded in a social context. There¡¯s a discussion of perverse incentives, and 바카라사이트 unintended consequences of badly designed markets. I¡¯m not one for disciplinary boundaries, but some of this is starting to sound very sociological. And when 바카라사이트y say that economics is a form of narrative, informed by facts and data, 바카라사이트y echo heterodox ¡°romantic¡± economists such as Deirdre McCloskey. It¡¯s just ano바카라사이트r small step towards 바카라사이트 terrible realisation that facts are narratives too, and data carry 바카라사이트ir own moral compasses. By 바카라사이트n, 바카라사이트 Freakonomists will have tumbled into 바카라사이트 wishing well of post-modernism, and it really will be time to quit.