Review of: Think Like a Freak: The Authors of Freakonomics Offer to Retrain Your
Brain
Authors: Steven D. Levitt &
Stephen J. DubnerPublisher: William Morrow
Source: Dallas Public Library
Grade: A
Who knew economics could be so
much fun? Economist Steven D. Levitt and journalist Stephen J. Dubner, that’s
who. The guys who brought us mashups of economics and popular culture, Freakonomics and its sequel, SuperFreakonomics, are going for serial
book status with their third book, Think
Like a Freak. Yes, having explored such unlikely topics as why terrorists
should buy life insurance, and the positive relationship between a drop in
crime and the availability of legal abortion, Levitt and Dubner regale readers
with the reasoning behind their madness. And how we can open our minds to make
other amazing – and profitable linkages.
Given that the book’s title
includes “retrain,” the authors provide plenty of suggestions on how to
generate ideas that sound goofy only until they work.
Some of their retraining
suggestions sound counterintuitive – the power of the three hardest words in
the English language (no, they aren’t I
love you) as well as the power of ditching the moral compass when
considering possibilities. Some sound rational but difficult, such as devising
scientific experiments to test such hypotheses as the relationship (or not) between
advertising and sales volume.
There are also outright
bonkers-sounding possibilities like running a successful charity by offering
donors a chance to opt out of future fundraisers. (Yes, it’s been done.) Or how
banks might beef up their customers’ savings by running lotteries -- an
intriguing suggestion but not currently legal in most areas. Or why paying students
for good grades could really pay off – if enough funding is available. As well
as the surprising suggestion that medieval trials by ordeal might have been
surprisingly effective at determining the guilt or innocence of accused
persons.
And then there are the fun and
(serious) games, those Levitt and Dubner dub “making your garden weed itself.”
Therein lies the real reason a famous rock band’s contract specified the colors
of the M&M snack candies it demanded from concert promoters. (And the
surprising connections between a certain rock star and the most famous judgement
by biblical wise man King Solomon.)
Readers previously outraged by
such previous Levitt and Dubner ploys as why terrorists should buy life
insurance, or what the real reason is for decreased crime rates following the
legalization of abortion may be placated by follow-ups in Think Like a Freak.
Failure to purchase life insurance, even when there were wives and young children, was among the surprising – at least to the authors – correlations between terrorism suspects. With tongues firmly in cheek, Levitt and Dubner suggested in a previous book that possible terrorists could make themselves less visible by purchasing life insurance – from their bank. After being (dare I say it?) martyred in the press for supposedly telling terrorists how to avoid law enforcement, the two Steves reveal in Think Like a Freak that it was the oddity of purchasing life insurance from a bank, rather than an insurance company, which they expected would actually make such purchasers more visible to law enforcement profilers. Whether either would-be terrorists or profilers use this information is problematic, however, since law enforcement agencies are famously stingy about revealing their actual criteria.
Finally, no Levitt and Dubner
don’t believe access to abortion is the real reason behind drops in crime
rates. The sad but true connection, they say, is that fewer children were
raised by parents who didn’t want them. The best cure for crime may be loving,
responsible families, but that’s too big a chore even for a pair of freaks to
undertake.
***
Since I began posting on Amazon, a number of writers have
contacted me asking for reviews. Unfortunately, the pressure of doing my own
writing—fiction and blogging—has made it impossible for me to honor most of
these requests. Fortunately, I follow a number of book bloggers who read and
review far more than I can:
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