Freakonomics
2005-05-23 14:48:43.235085+00 by
Dan Lyke
1 comments
Various forwarded articles on our hiking mailing list talking about Freakonomics made me break down and buy the book. It's a quick read, but oddly hollow, a little too much in praise of Levitt, a little shy on "how can I duplicate this at home" (not all of it, but some of it). So I recommend reading it, but I think $26 is a bit steep. However, the authors of Freakonomics have a 'blog that's worth looking through. The Abortion and crime: who should you believe? entry is worth reading, as is the transcript of Levitt and Dubner on The O'Reilly Factor for some serious spinning.
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#Comment Re: made: 2005-05-25 20:19:24.534522+00 by:
Jerry Kindall
The book's worth it just for the story about the guy who made a laughingstock of the KKK by going undercover, discovering its most secret practices, and leaking them to... well, I don't want to spoil it, but it was fascinating and amazing. Everybody should read that.
I also found it interesting that they got Malcolm Gladwell to blurb the book even though it pretty thoroughly trashes the "broken windows" school of policing that featured so prominently in Gladwell's "The Tipping Point."