Steven D. Levitt And Stephen J. Dubner's Freakonomics

The first argument was that if there are couples waiting to adopt, and abortion takes away the chance for a couple to have a child, then all women should choose adoption in lieu of abortion. Though this argument seems valid enough, it is based largely on rhetoric alone. To claim that adoption is always a better option than abortion suggests that simply ‘not wanting a child’ is the only reason that women ever choose to have an abortion.

The intended audience of Steven D. Levitt and Stephen J. Dubner’s Freakonomics is made up of middle class Americans and comprised of adults and teenagers with a basic education and a broad knowledge of a wide range of subjects. Since Levitt and Dubner reference a large variety of topics, it is imperative for the audience to also be familiar with a wide variety of subjects or at the very least to be aware of popular culture and government. For example, when Levitt and Dubner reference a Supreme Court case, Roe v. Wade, where a young woman named Norma McCorvey was “...the lead plaintiff in a class-action lawsuit seeking to legalize abortion” they establish their audience as one that would be educated enough to know the fundamentals of some of the most important events in American history (Levitt and Dubner 5). By referencing the Roe v. Wade case, a court case which is generally considered to be common knowledge for Americans, Levitt and Dubner reveal that their audience must be comprised of

The author Steven Levitt studied economics at Harvard University and MIT. He is primarily known for his work in the field of crime. The title Freakonomics means a study of economics based on the principles of incentives. The title is related to the book since he emphasizes how incentives drive and affect people’s actions. Although this book does not have a single theme, the main focus of the book is a new way of interpreting the world using economic tools. He explores incentives, information asymmetry, conventional wisdom, crime and abortion, and parenting throughout the six chapters of the book.

Many people think that abortion should only be an option when the conception of a fetus is an outcome from rape or incest. Actually, polls show that three-quarters of the public support legal abortion when a woman's life is endangered by pregnancy or the pregnancy is the result of rape or incest. But support drops dramatically when the justifications seem frivolous or an unplanned pregnancy is the result of perceived carelessness. (Singer) However, abortion shouldn’t just be an option when something horrible happens to a woman, abortion should also be a possibility when a woman isn’t ready for a child or doesn’t want to raise a child. Furthermore, the public fails to realize that being pro-choice doesn’t mean one has to be pro-abortion. When the public support for abortion drops because of a woman’s irresponsibility emphasizes that abortion shouldn’t be an option unless

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.

Could it be that the government’s intervention by legalizing abortion in the Roe v. Wade decision lead to the dramatic reduction in crime? Did the government inadvertently save my life by preventing the birth of criminals? This paper will first explore the generally

For example, when Levitt and Dubner argue that the reason for a decline in crime was the institution of abortion policies they support their claim by stating that “because of Roe v. Wade, these children weren’t being born” and the simple cause and effect logic of their argument make readers slightly more likely to accept their highly provocative conclusion (Levitt and Dubner 6). Since the mothers who would likely give birth to future criminals were able to get abortions, the “pool of potential criminals had dramatically shrunk” (Levitt and Dubner 6). The Levitt and Dubner used simple logic to dampen the controversial nature of their assertion that certain children were born more likely to become

The controversy that is abortion is a complicated matter. It affects Americans by making them choose between pro-life and pro-choice. Can one truly decide to be either pro-life or pro-choice? This choice is chosen by what one truly believes. Some may believe there is not a choice to be made but a side to choose from. “Pro-choice and pro-life don’t engage the central issue that divides them” (Oliver pg. 19).

Many, if not most, of the people in today's generation are constantly judged by others and even themselves based on what their identity comprises of. The concept of racial injustice and inequality among ethnic minorities constantly fills the media. Women's rights issues seem to arise rapidly whenever a single female is mistreated in the slightest way. The debate on homosexuality is also an enormous topic in our social lives today, with millions of supporters for it, but also millions against it. This internal segregation within our own human population is nothing new, since it has been continuing ever since verbal and written communication with each other has existed. All these components, and many more, are a huge part of what identifies a

The book Freakonomics by Steven D. Levitt and Stephen J. Dubner, is designed to pose fundamental questions concerning economics using a variety of imaginative comparisons and questions. Examples of these comparisons and questions can be seen in the list of contents, with chapter titles such as “How is the Ku Klux Klan like a group of real-estate agents?” and “Why do drug dealers still live with their moms?” Not everyone is interested in economics, but with titles that grab attention, it is almost impossible not to pick up the book and read it for yourself. The two chapters of Freakonomics I will be analyzing are “What do Schoolteachers and Sumo Wrestlers have in common?” and “Perfect Parenting, Part II; or: Would a Roshanda by any other

In Freakonomics, incentive emphasizes Steven Levitt and Stephen Dubner’s unification of disparate chapters and American society. Economic incentives drive people like teachers and criminals to make certain decisions. “...high-stakes testing has so radically changed the incentives for teachers…” (Levitt, and Dubner 23). School teachers’ incentive is to cheat because they do not want be fired or passed up for promotion because of low test scores. Levitt discovers that the different ranks in gangs have opposite incentives. “A foot soldier’s incentive was to make a name for himself; J. T.’s incentive was, in effect, to keep the foot soldiers from doing so” (Levitt, and Dubner 105-106). Foot soldiers start gang wars in the hopes of becoming noticed

This quote derived from Brooke Gladstone and Josh Neufeld's “The Influencing Machines”, voices the anxiety that other people feel when being introduced to new products and how they could destroy society overtime. It gives us insight as to what trends are helping the people vs. the one’s that aren’t. Take the fidget spinner, this product was created for kids with ADHD as a means to alleviate stress and help them stay still, but as its popularity increased so did its use with children who do not have ADHD. The use of it in schools has led it to being banned in some states such as: Florida, Illinois, New York and Virginia. This quote suggests that society will concede to outside influences and will be utterly lost to the point where they are

Freakonomics, published in 2005, is a book centered around the belief that traditional intelligence is not the key to economics. It focuses on the correlations between a person’s morals, wisdom, and social life and economics. In the movie The Distinguished Gentleman, a con man uses the death of a Congressman to boost his own campaign using the same name. As the movie progresses, the former con man begins to see the true corruption of politics. One of the major key concepts discussed in Freakonomics is about conventional wisdom.

Choice theory was born out of the perspective of crime causation which states that criminality is the result of conscious choice. This theory is also known as the rational choice theory. According to this theory, the choice whether or not to commit a criminal act is the result of a rational thought process that weighs the risks of paying the costs of committing a crime, against the benefits obtained. In other words, if the benefits--monetary or otherwise--outweigh the risks of sustaining the costs, such as fines, imprisonment or execution, then according to this theory the individual would be inclined to commit the crime, all other things being equal. In this calculus, the benefits are known. For example, “this diamond that I want to

Rational choice theory, also known simply as choice theory, is the assessment of a potential offender to commit a crime. Choice theory is the belief that committing a crime is a rational decision, based on cost benefit analysis. The would-be offender will weigh the costs of committing a particular crime: fines, jail time, and imprisonment versus the benefits: money, status, heightened adrenaline. Depending on which factors out-weigh the other, a criminal will decide to commit or forgo committing a crime. This decision making process makes committing a crime a rational choice. This theory can be used to explain why an offender will decide to commit burglary, robbery, aggravated assault, or murder.