freakshow and tell

this one comes as a sort of “public service announcement” to the rational readership (all three of you know who you are!)

honestly, do yourself a favour and go read this book. it was co-written by a (so-called) “rogue” economist who, to our collective benefit, chose to apply his capacity for mathematical prognostication on something other than jobs reports and manufacturing indices. stuff like cheating in sports and the life of a crack gang. stuff like campaign finance and the challenge of standardized testing.

here’s an exerpt to whet your appetite:

…Even though the experts had failed to anticipate the crime drop- which was in fact well under way even as they made their horrifying predictions-they now hurried to explain it. Most of their theories sounded perfectly logical. It was the roaring 1990s economy, they said, that helped turn back crime. It was the proliferation of gun control laws, they said. It was the sort of innovative policing strategies put into place in New York City, where murders would fall from 2,245 in 1990 to 596 in 2003.

These theories were not only logical; they were also encouraging, for they attributed the crime drop to specific and recent human initiatives. If it was gun control and clever police strategies and betterpaying jobs that quelled crime-well then, the power to stop criminals had been within our reach all along. As it would be the next time, God forbid, that crime got so bad.

These theories made their way, seemingly without question, from the experts’ mouths to journalists’ ears to the public’s mind. In short course, they became conventional wisdom.

There was only one problem: they weren’t true…

authors levitt and dubner have managed to wade knee-deep through the jungles of data on human behaviour and somehow piece together a string of rational logic that provides a refreshingly unique perspective on the science of everyday things; an extremely popular topic around these parts, as you can well imagine.

in the course of their study, using only the basic anylitical principles of applied economics (along with a good dose of dismally scientific humour), the pair has actually changed the way humanity looks at itself. and not surprisingly, humanity has started to notice.

now, without spoiling the instant buzz you’ll undoubtedly experience when you first dive into their world, just do yourself a favour and pick up this book. if you put it down even once within the first half-hour, i will be very, very surprised…