Analysis Of The Book ' Freakonomics ' By Steven D. Levitt

In the book Freakonomics, written by economist Steven D. Levitt and journalist Stephen J. Dubne, the authors go through different parts of modern life to show how economics describes why people act a certain way as well as the way specific outcomes occur. They look into different aspects of society and view them with different perspectives. With the use of specific data and the fundamentals of economics, the very obscure comparisons and the different chapters in the book show correlation between economics and human nature. The main point of this book is to explain a few fundamental ideas through the answers of strange questions and how they play a major role in society.

In chapter 2 of Freakonomics the main argument is that the absence of information can be used for personal gain. The main example used to display this tactic is when the KKK is compared to real estate agents. Although the crafty practice of real estate agents is in no way similar to the horrors of the KKK, they have a distinct similarity when it comes to the hoarding of information. The majority of the chapter focuses on the history of the KKK and Stetson Kennedy’s effort to stop it through the infiltration and exposure via radio of the Klan. Since the Klan was dependant on their violent—despite not being extremely violent—reputation, the disclosure of the information they had withheld from the public rendered them powerless. The narrators

Online dating allows singles, couples, or groups to meet each other online with the hopes of forming a social, romantic, or sexual relationship. Those that sign up with an online dating service typically provide information for other members to view in the form of a personal profile. This personal profile is the main deciding factor as to whether or not an online dater chooses to communication with another member of the online dating service. Online dating, a relatively new form of social matchmaking, has both positive and negative aspects to it. Just as any sort of social interaction can have pros and cons. In this topic, I am going to give reasons how on how online dating can be avantage and disvantages to us and what impact it has on

In the book Freakonomics, by Steven D. Levitt and Stephen J. Dubner, is made up of a series of scenarios in which an economist and a journalist apply basic principles of economics to demonstrate that information can often expose interesting truths about how the world operates. It uses the science of economics and specific data to challenge our assumptions about everything. In the book Freakonomics by Levitt & Dubner, compares and contrasts two groups of people or things by using their informational data. This is called juxtaposition, which means the fact of two things being seen or placed close together with contrasting effect. Levitt and Dubner look at the world in a way that is both surprising, occasionally funny, and always enlightening. They do so by drawing unexpected connections between two greatly different but complementary aspects of sociology and economics, such as sumo wrestlers to school teachers, KKK members to the real estate agents, and lastly, crack gangs to McDonalds.

In chapter 3 in Freakonomics by Stevin Levitt and Stephen Dubner, it concentrates on conventional wisdom. The chapter begins by discussing about conventional wisdom, and how conventional can be wrong. Conventional wisdom was invented by John Kenneth Galbraith to explain generally acceptance by the public. It is furthered explained that conventional wisdom is associated with convenience. That many experts used it for their own agenda. But then explained how asking pointed questions can often overturn conventional wisdom. The authors provide some examples of when people have done some creative lying to draw attention. One of the examples was about getting people’s attention on how rape is a serious problem, it’s much more attention grabbing to tell people that it occurs in every one in three women, rather than the

In Steven D. Levitt and Stephen J. Dubner’s Freakonomics, they use unconventional wisdom to explain certain events. They use very solid data in order to support their conclusions about certain events. However, some of their conclusions suffer from errors in reasoning, or rather, fallacies. Although they have done several different types of fallacies, the main one they’ve done is the either-or choice.

In chapter one of Freakonomics, the authors discuss several key themes. These themes include cheating and incentives. Cheating includes anything from a little white lie to get your way or even committing fraud. The authors use simple concepts like these and tie them into real-world situations using research and exploration of such topics. Among these cheaters are school teachers, sumo wrestlers, and office workers.

​The field of economics is often distinguished as a field of studying financial trends and market advancements, but Freakonomics reveals how the tools used in economic research can be put to use to study the events and problems that our society encounter on a daily basis. Freakonomics presents a vivid display of how informal methods of data accumulation and examination are often necessary to have an appreciation of the world around us. Just knowing what to measure and how to measure data from our routine lives makes the complex world around us somewhat less problematic. Oftentimes, Levitt presents situations that challenge our prior beliefs and leaves the reader in a state of amazement. The situations in the chapters without no doubt demonstrate

Within its 300 or so pages, Freakonomics manages to cover a vast scope of topics that typically wouldn’t be seen as related at all, let alone bound within the same two covers of a best-selling book. From sumo wrestlers to real-estate agents to drug dealers, Levitt and Dubner delve into these and many other unconventional topics in a way that shines a new light on all of them--in a way that an economist would look at them.

Freakonomics written by Steven D. Levitt and Stephen J. Dubner. Copyright, 2005 by Steven D. Levitt and Stephen J. Dubner. A non-fiction book about the intertwining discourses of pop culture and economics. Steven David Levitt is an American economist who is well known for his work that specifically focuses on crime, and the connection between legalized abortion and the effect it has on crime rates. Mr. Levitt is currently the “William B. Ogden Distinguished Service Professor of Economics” at the University of Chicago. He coauthored the book Freakonomics with Stephen J. Dubner who is an American journalist who has written four books as well as several articles. He is best known however, for his work with Steven Levitt. The intended audience for this book is high school seniors and older. This is the intended audience for this book because the course economics is offered to high school seniors, only. Therefore, it would be logical to offer this piece of literature to this age group as a piece of the class or for better understanding of the subject, economics. This book is also intended for ages older than high school because it is a higher level reading, some of the vocabulary words used throughout the book would be difficult for people of younger age groups to comprehend. The main point the author wishes to make in this book is to challenge prior beliefs and the make the reader see normal, everyday occurrences through a different lense. Although there is not one uniform

As I read through the introduction of “Freakonomics” by Stephen J. Dubner and Steve Levitt, I’m highly dissatisfied with the way the author opens the book. Personally, I felt like it was well written, but lacked appeal. To illustrate further, the book starts with information regarding the false predictions of criminologists of crime rates. However, my feelings are slightly positively changed as I find the author exposing “the hidden side of everything”, as he claims (which is also the theme of the book). For example, as he bypasses the information of the sky-high crime rate, he starts talking about a woman who changed crime rates by legalizing an abortion (which is illegal at the time). Sequentially, he explains how the crime-drop

Regardless of Levitt’s claim that “this book boasts no unifying theme,” Freakonomics consists of one motif, the use of data to explain the unexplainable, or Levitt’s study of Economics, Freakonomics (Levitt, Dubner 14). For example, in the late twentieth century the crime was at an all time high, but by the turn of the century crime dropped to the lowest rate in the last 35 years. Many proposed that this massive drop resulted from gun control, a strong economy, or new police strategies, but what if the criminals that would have plagued the twentieth century were never born? Levitt would argue that the supreme court decision of Roe v. Wade, which legalized abortion, is the cause of the drop in crime. He qualified his claim by disproving the

summarizing the entire point of the first book: “If pressed, you could boil it down to four words: People respond to incentives.” Incentives are basically the gains—whether actual, potential, or perceived—to be had by acting a certain way. So Levitt and Dubner would say that people are motivated to act as they do by what they can gain by those actions...the Freakonomics team gives plenty of evidence for this conclusion. Time and again they present some bizarre trend in human activity and then demonstrate that these people are merely responding to an incentive, whether it be financial, social, psychological, emotional, etc. Some of the most powerful incentives they identify are money, power, and fear.

In this paper, I have discussed how online dating is becoming popular and how the individuals are usually deceived by it. I have also discussed how the new television show Catfish is turning out to be a great example of how social media has changed online dating. All in all, I have covered the negative outcomes of online dating.

In today's post-modern society, dating practices are both vast and varied. People meet their romantic partners in any number of locations including at work, at the bar, and increasingly, on the Internet. Online dating has become very popular over the past decade, and according to a study done in Washington DC, over 74% of single Internet users in the US have taken part in at least one online dating-related activity. In addition, this study found that 15% of American adults (that's 30 million people) say that they know someone who has been in a long-term relationship with a partner they met online (Biever, 2006).