William Levitt

In “What do Al Gore and Mount Pinatubo Have in Common” Steven D. Levitt and Stephen J. Dubner argue that global warming is a challenging problem to address and may not be caused by people; therefore, people are reluctant to act on something they do not understand. At the beginning of this essay, the authors write about global cooling and how people reacted to it (737). The text then goes into detail about the effects of global warming and carbon emissions. The authors then write about the emissions

life such as how to best format an online dating profile or finding the reasoning behind why employees in large corporations tend to steal bagels, authors Steven Levitt and Stephen Dubner in their book Freakonomics claim to explore “the hidden side of everything.” The previous examples provided, including the various other topics that Levitt and Dubner touch upon in their book, are likely unimportant to the average reader and as a whole are without any obvious similarities. The authors even mention

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

The last section in chapter two of Freakonomics, written by Steven D. Levitt and Stephen J. Dubner, attempts to answer the following questions; “How forthright (and honest) are people when it comes to sharing their personal information,” and “what kind of information in personal ads is considered the most (and least) desirable” (74)? Throughout this section the authors provide statistical data from an online dating site, which encompassed more than 20,000 users. This data showed that not only are

What is it about a book that keeps one reading? One continues to read a book when it is interesting and if they can make a connection to it. But, what makes a book interesting? There are many ways authors attract their readers. Authors use different techniques like, circle chronological order style, evoking strong emotions, and creating complex characters to shock and lure their readers. Many authors use circle chronological order style when writing their book. “Instead of simply beginning at the

Freakonimics was written by two authors, both of which are only referred to directly in the book’s introduction where they establish credibility by noting their qualifications, Steven D. Levitt, an award winning college professor and economist, and Stephen J. Dubner, a reporter, author, and journalist (Dubner and Levitt XXIII). The core of the book is told by an unspecified speaker, presumably Dubner articulating Levitt’s research. The narrator demonstrates himself to be a trustworthy guide by often

In the book Freakonomics, Steven Levitt and Stephen Dubner note “An incentive is a bullet, a lever, a key: an often-tiny object with astonishing power to change a situation” (16). This is to showcase the amount of power an incentive can have over a person or a situation; either good or bad. Humans are found to use incentives when it comes to making daily decisions. Often, people need motives to proceed with their plans. Some tend to make either moral, social, or economic incentive. The moral incentive

The nonfiction book Freakonomics, published in 2005, describes itself as “A Rogue Economist Explores the Hidden Side of Everything”. It connects anything from game-fixing and statistics to abortion and crime to the economics of those things. The aim and scope of Freakonomics is to analyze data and statistics and relate it to what is occurring in the United States as well as the rest of the world. The fictional movie 12 Angry Men follows 12 men as the decide whether or not there is enough evidence

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.     The either-or choice is when a piece of evidence that states something is either one way or another

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