freakonomics: a rogue economist explores the hidden side of everything, by steven levitt and stephen dubner (followed by a short folklore)
the former is a full economics prof (and under forty) at university of chicago and the latter is a journalist with new york times and new yorker. as described in its title and like malcom gladwell (and other modern writers), the book attempts to provoke the modern mind and explain modern day phenomena and debunk conventional wisdom. but interestingly, the book is based on papers written by levitt, an economist, and most of the book’s ideas are backed by data. a massive amount of them.
like john allen paulos, in innumeracy, the authors analyse data, crunch numbers and present their findings to show how much one can glean from facts and numbers, and how wrong some “experts” can get by simply theorizing and arguing. thankfully, the tools levitt and dubner used are more advanced than those in paulos’ book, probably signifying a progress in the numeracy of ppl (and also, probably this book is not about the inability of pple to read numbers, but about the tendency of ppl to not rely on data to back their ideas).
there are many ideas which may occur as novel or refreshing. but i will blog about them another time. wat struck me though was the pluck (and some tact too) the authors had to put up seemingly unpopular and “politically incorrect” propositions based on data (of course, there’s also a great financial incentive in boosting book sales). the openness in revealing facts based on numbers are certainly missing in some societies as the next FICTIONAL tale (i heard last year) reveals:
Once upon a time, there was a village, which relied on rearing catfish for survival. The feed for the catfish is controlled by a village council. Decades ago, the village had a problem of overpopulating catfishes of the local breed. The Council then therefore restricted the rearing of catfishes and since then the problem of overpopulation came under control. Now, the Council faced the reverse of the problem – dwindling population of catfishes. To cut the long story short, the Council then decided to bring other breeds of catfishes to rear in the village.
Initially, there were the Red catfishes which ate plenty and were thought to fetch good prices too. Recently, a new breed known as Breed C was brought in. They ate little, but they are available in huge quantities. Now, the problem: all the catfishes, local and imported alike, were fed by the feed provided by the Council. Of course, there were protests amongst the locals. Local feed should be for the Local breed. The Council then assured: Local breed will always come first.
So much for the background info. The saga starts here. One statistics teacher at South School (interestingly, the school was located in the west of the village) looked at the available data. Like Levitt, he analysed it and came to a surprising conclusion: “of the new feed introduced by the Council, a disproportionately bigger share of the feed goes to the non-local breeds.” (Note: disproportionately bigger should not be read as grotesquely larger, but read as the non-local breeds taking more in proportion than it should. For example, suppose the non-local breed is 5% of the whole catfish population. The non-local breeds are taking more than 5% of the feed. Note again, these are FICTIONAL figures.)
And somehow, the conclusion was published in the village papers, and the Council was not very happy. They called up the Teacher and told him to withdraw his conclusion. The Teacher refused as the facts were there and the conclusion correct. Big (but contained) hoo haa followed. The School Headmaster was called to the Council to mediate the situation. Well, the Council was cognisant of the facts and was trying to amend the situation. However, they did not want the locals to know. The Teacher stood by his findings and refused to admit to mistakes that he did not make.
In the end, the Council prevailed. The papers in the following weeks published a statement from the Council, pointing out a gap in the Teacher’s arguments. The Teacher had forgotten to take into account of some factor and if the factor was considered, the conclusion would not follow. Well well. There are many stands to take for this episode. See Benevolence See Wisdom. A local Constable upon hearing the inside story exclaimed, “The Teacher’s statement could have started a riot!” Hmm.
I have to emphasize again. the story is FICTIONAL, MADE UP, and ANY RESEMBLANCE TO REAL CHARACTERS AND EVENTS IS TOTALLY COINCIDENTAL. where do i stand on this issue? i have no idea, but my tendency leans towards the Teacher. in fact, when i heard this tale, i said that the stand one takes reflects the level of maturity one perceives of the locals of the village. That is, the Teacher perceives the Locals to be mature, while the Constable does not. Just like a parent who reveals more to his child only when the former deems the child is of the age to know more.
does this mean that americans are more mature? i dunno. but in light of levitt, to find out, we just have to find a way to measure the correlation of “maturity level” to “exposure to controversial statements”.
the former is a full economics prof (and under forty) at university of chicago and the latter is a journalist with new york times and new yorker. as described in its title and like malcom gladwell (and other modern writers), the book attempts to provoke the modern mind and explain modern day phenomena and debunk conventional wisdom. but interestingly, the book is based on papers written by levitt, an economist, and most of the book’s ideas are backed by data. a massive amount of them.
like john allen paulos, in innumeracy, the authors analyse data, crunch numbers and present their findings to show how much one can glean from facts and numbers, and how wrong some “experts” can get by simply theorizing and arguing. thankfully, the tools levitt and dubner used are more advanced than those in paulos’ book, probably signifying a progress in the numeracy of ppl (and also, probably this book is not about the inability of pple to read numbers, but about the tendency of ppl to not rely on data to back their ideas).
there are many ideas which may occur as novel or refreshing. but i will blog about them another time. wat struck me though was the pluck (and some tact too) the authors had to put up seemingly unpopular and “politically incorrect” propositions based on data (of course, there’s also a great financial incentive in boosting book sales). the openness in revealing facts based on numbers are certainly missing in some societies as the next FICTIONAL tale (i heard last year) reveals:
Once upon a time, there was a village, which relied on rearing catfish for survival. The feed for the catfish is controlled by a village council. Decades ago, the village had a problem of overpopulating catfishes of the local breed. The Council then therefore restricted the rearing of catfishes and since then the problem of overpopulation came under control. Now, the Council faced the reverse of the problem – dwindling population of catfishes. To cut the long story short, the Council then decided to bring other breeds of catfishes to rear in the village.
Initially, there were the Red catfishes which ate plenty and were thought to fetch good prices too. Recently, a new breed known as Breed C was brought in. They ate little, but they are available in huge quantities. Now, the problem: all the catfishes, local and imported alike, were fed by the feed provided by the Council. Of course, there were protests amongst the locals. Local feed should be for the Local breed. The Council then assured: Local breed will always come first.
So much for the background info. The saga starts here. One statistics teacher at South School (interestingly, the school was located in the west of the village) looked at the available data. Like Levitt, he analysed it and came to a surprising conclusion: “of the new feed introduced by the Council, a disproportionately bigger share of the feed goes to the non-local breeds.” (Note: disproportionately bigger should not be read as grotesquely larger, but read as the non-local breeds taking more in proportion than it should. For example, suppose the non-local breed is 5% of the whole catfish population. The non-local breeds are taking more than 5% of the feed. Note again, these are FICTIONAL figures.)
And somehow, the conclusion was published in the village papers, and the Council was not very happy. They called up the Teacher and told him to withdraw his conclusion. The Teacher refused as the facts were there and the conclusion correct. Big (but contained) hoo haa followed. The School Headmaster was called to the Council to mediate the situation. Well, the Council was cognisant of the facts and was trying to amend the situation. However, they did not want the locals to know. The Teacher stood by his findings and refused to admit to mistakes that he did not make.
In the end, the Council prevailed. The papers in the following weeks published a statement from the Council, pointing out a gap in the Teacher’s arguments. The Teacher had forgotten to take into account of some factor and if the factor was considered, the conclusion would not follow. Well well. There are many stands to take for this episode. See Benevolence See Wisdom. A local Constable upon hearing the inside story exclaimed, “The Teacher’s statement could have started a riot!” Hmm.
I have to emphasize again. the story is FICTIONAL, MADE UP, and ANY RESEMBLANCE TO REAL CHARACTERS AND EVENTS IS TOTALLY COINCIDENTAL. where do i stand on this issue? i have no idea, but my tendency leans towards the Teacher. in fact, when i heard this tale, i said that the stand one takes reflects the level of maturity one perceives of the locals of the village. That is, the Teacher perceives the Locals to be mature, while the Constable does not. Just like a parent who reveals more to his child only when the former deems the child is of the age to know more.
does this mean that americans are more mature? i dunno. but in light of levitt, to find out, we just have to find a way to measure the correlation of “maturity level” to “exposure to controversial statements”.
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