Steven D. Levitt's "Freakonomics"

Freakonomics by Steven D. Levitt and Stephen J. Dubner

The title "Freakonomics: A Rogue Economist Explores the Hidden Side of Everything" is a little misleading. He actually only explores the hidden side of a dozen or so things, but what he does is explore is most definitely interesting. And with his weekly article in the New York Times, Mr. Levitt certainly has time to keep exploring everything.

This book, co-written by Steven D. Levitt and Stephen J. Dubner is one of the select must-reads from the Uncollege Reading List (uncollege.org), which is how I stumbled across it. However, before I even got to it, several people had asked if I'd read it. Surprisingly, every person who mentioned it, referenced the same chapter - one in which the authors explain the correlation between the legalization of abortion after Roe v. Wade and the unforeseen nationwide drop in crime during the 90's. 

To give you a bit more of an idea of what this book is about, "Freakonomics" is a compilation of how statistics and data can be examined to show relationships that you nay have never noticed. The authors show how they were able to use match result data to prove cheating among Japanese sumo wrestlers, the show the inner-workings and financial data of the Chicago crack regime, they show what facets of parenting do and don't contribute to the scholastic success of their kids, and plenty more, all with the numbers to back it up.

Of course, many of the points that they make can still be argued by the reader, however, the theories and insight are still interesting and worth the read. One particular study at the end of the book is actually very interesting today, since the list of the 2012 most popular baby names was released today. The article is about how you can take popular baby name list, and using that data, predict which names will be popular years down the road. Since the book was written in 2005, they predicted the popular names for 2015. Let's see how they compare so far.

Of the 2012 most popular girl names, they had on their list - Sophie/Sophia, Emma, Isabel/Isabell and Ava. Four out of ten. Not too bad.

Of the 2012 boys names, they had - Aidan, Jackson and Liam. Three out of ten. Still not bad for a guess made seven years ago. 

It still remains to be seen how they do for 2015 year. 

Anyway, whether you agree with them or not on their findings, if you keep an open mind, it's a quick and fascinating read.