Freakonomics vs Tipping Point?
This article points out that Freakonomics and The Tipping Point disagree on the causes of the reduction of crime in New York City in the mid 90's.
desireearmfeldt gave me a copy of the latter book for Christmas, and I'd previously borrowed the former from firstfrost. In both cases I felt like I was reading something rather like a business book. That said, Freakonomics was written by real economists, with real footnotes and real citations. The analysis above certainly comes out in their favor, since they attempt to back up their most controversial opinions (crime is correlated to abortion rate) with multiple sources of data.
That said, I've now read a bunch of business books and have very mixed feelings about the whole phenomenon. The writing style is breezy and case-study-filled, and usually these books go down lightly and easily. But balanced treatment of evidence is lacking or absent. And usually there is about 20 pages worth of actual point buried among the several hundred pages of prose. And it is a sign that I am perhaps an overly credulous reader that I'm able to read conflicting viewpoints without jumping out of my seat to say, "Hey!"
desireearmfeldt gave me a copy of the latter book for Christmas, and I'd previously borrowed the former from firstfrost. In both cases I felt like I was reading something rather like a business book. That said, Freakonomics was written by real economists, with real footnotes and real citations. The analysis above certainly comes out in their favor, since they attempt to back up their most controversial opinions (crime is correlated to abortion rate) with multiple sources of data.
That said, I've now read a bunch of business books and have very mixed feelings about the whole phenomenon. The writing style is breezy and case-study-filled, and usually these books go down lightly and easily. But balanced treatment of evidence is lacking or absent. And usually there is about 20 pages worth of actual point buried among the several hundred pages of prose. And it is a sign that I am perhaps an overly credulous reader that I'm able to read conflicting viewpoints without jumping out of my seat to say, "Hey!"