The Freaky Science
One of the books I finally got around to reading this past fall was “Freakonomics”. I had thought it got so much hype because it was sort of groundbreaking in its edgey approach to economics, but when I looked a little further into the topic, it appeared to me that this sort of irreverent, pop econ thing has been going on for several years, at least as far as books and NPR programming goes. Today Marketplace featured the author of "The Undercover Economist" and I remember listening to a piece on the economics of dating on TTBOOK (although I can’t easily find it right now). I got the "Naked Economics" at the library book sale and am looking forward to reading it. The other week, Slate included an interesting short article on the work of an economist studying the economic effects of pregnancy on women in their 20s.( Link)
(Apropos of things that are dismal, my trashy neighbors are fighting again and pounding on something to the degree that it’s shaking my walls. Gosh darn them.)
So, anyway, “Freakonomics”… it proffered novel ways of viewing phenomena and was a quick, engaging, and edifying read, although some of the theories seemed a bit contrived/questionable to me. I learned that the real name of Jane Roe of Roe v Wade was Norma McCorvey, a Texan drug user who later renounced her role in legalizing abortion and became a right-to-lifer.
The explanation of campaign spending inequities was interesting… Dubner explains the greater campaign spending by winning candidates thusly: incumbents and front-runners are more likely to generate large campaign contributions because persons and organizations want to spend their funds in ways that are the most likely to result in them being owed favors by politicians in positions of power. He also states that the amount spent on congressional campaigns in the US is roughly equivalent to the amount spent on chewing gum, which, if true, is mind-boggling. Who is chewing all this gum, I would like to know?
Topically, “Freakonomics” is all over the map, so I thought I’d mention a few of my favorite fun facts. Romanian dictator Ceausescu, a real character, banned abortion in 1966 and imposed a “celibacy tax” on women who didn’t conceive. In the U.S. there’s about 1 abortion per 140 Americans each year; in Romania the ration was 1:22 in the year after Ceausescu was deposed through violent execution. (This nugget relates to the controversial assertion by Dubner that the crime drop in the U.S. in the 1990s is largely due to the legalization of abortion in the 1970s. By the way, this isn’t in Freakon but I’m reminded of it: I was completely surprised a few months ago to learn that one in four pregnancies in this country ends in abortion (Link While from the CDC, this isn’t the greatest link ever, but I’m too lazy to hunt up an optimal one.) Speaking of the untimely death of progeny, another surprising fact was that a swimming pool is 100 times more likely to kill a child than a gun in the house.
In the lists illustrating how baby names migrate down the socioeconomic ladder over time, I learned that I have the second most white female first name. Very nice. Well, I think it’s time for me to get my penultimately white *ss to bed. (I feel like this is an instance when I should somehow be able to use the word “penultimate” even though this is not technically justifiable as far as I can tell.)
BTW, Freakonomics, like every-one/thing else, has a blog: http://www.freakonomics.com/.
(Apropos of things that are dismal, my trashy neighbors are fighting again and pounding on something to the degree that it’s shaking my walls. Gosh darn them.)
So, anyway, “Freakonomics”… it proffered novel ways of viewing phenomena and was a quick, engaging, and edifying read, although some of the theories seemed a bit contrived/questionable to me. I learned that the real name of Jane Roe of Roe v Wade was Norma McCorvey, a Texan drug user who later renounced her role in legalizing abortion and became a right-to-lifer.
The explanation of campaign spending inequities was interesting… Dubner explains the greater campaign spending by winning candidates thusly: incumbents and front-runners are more likely to generate large campaign contributions because persons and organizations want to spend their funds in ways that are the most likely to result in them being owed favors by politicians in positions of power. He also states that the amount spent on congressional campaigns in the US is roughly equivalent to the amount spent on chewing gum, which, if true, is mind-boggling. Who is chewing all this gum, I would like to know?
Topically, “Freakonomics” is all over the map, so I thought I’d mention a few of my favorite fun facts. Romanian dictator Ceausescu, a real character, banned abortion in 1966 and imposed a “celibacy tax” on women who didn’t conceive. In the U.S. there’s about 1 abortion per 140 Americans each year; in Romania the ration was 1:22 in the year after Ceausescu was deposed through violent execution. (This nugget relates to the controversial assertion by Dubner that the crime drop in the U.S. in the 1990s is largely due to the legalization of abortion in the 1970s. By the way, this isn’t in Freakon but I’m reminded of it: I was completely surprised a few months ago to learn that one in four pregnancies in this country ends in abortion (Link While from the CDC, this isn’t the greatest link ever, but I’m too lazy to hunt up an optimal one.) Speaking of the untimely death of progeny, another surprising fact was that a swimming pool is 100 times more likely to kill a child than a gun in the house.
In the lists illustrating how baby names migrate down the socioeconomic ladder over time, I learned that I have the second most white female first name. Very nice. Well, I think it’s time for me to get my penultimately white *ss to bed. (I feel like this is an instance when I should somehow be able to use the word “penultimate” even though this is not technically justifiable as far as I can tell.)
BTW, Freakonomics, like every-one/thing else, has a blog: http://www.freakonomics.com/.