Freakonomics changes outlook

The second thing that got me up on the blogging horse again is that I went on vacation. And while out in the Eastern Townships – where, the more I think about it, the more I want to retire eventually – I finally read Freakonomics: A Rogue Economist Explores the Hidden Side of Everything. It’s only been on the best-seller list for about 1,000 weeks now.

In any case, why this book prompted me to put finger to keyboard is that, upon initial reflection, I didn’t think it changed a thing for me. Like Boom, Bust & Echo, I could argue (assuming that I could likely dig up some research findings to support my case) most of the points raised in the book to at least some degree and, like David Foot, I thought Freakonomics authors Levitt and Dubner did a great job of predicting…what had already taken place.

As an aside, this isn’t much different from my previously bitter view of economists’ predictions in general: given current and underlying market conditions, this stock/market/commodity will absolutely positively go up in price…unless it doesn’t.

Upon further reflection, however, I found Freakonomics has changed everything for me, or at least it has in the sense of assessing and questioning things in a whole new light. One of its most consistent themes was John Kenneth Galbraith’s notion of conventional wisdom which, contrary to conventional wisdom, isn’t a function of being wise. On the contrary; in many cases it is a set of universally misunderstood concepts that, because the population hasn’t sufficiently questioned underlying assumptions behind certain beliefs, lead to a widely accepted, inaccurate outlook on a given topic.

What Freakonomics instilled in me isn’t that all public policy is misdirected, but rather that I have been as guilty as anyone in accepting conventional wisdom as fact, failing to question seemingly sound assumptions because they do a good job of explaining why certain decisions get made. Here are a few examples:

Guns vs. Swimming Pools – Espousing what I think is a fairly typical Toronto attitude, I’m on side with the move towards stricter gun laws and tighter gun control (both in Canada and the U.S.). If my son goes to a friend’s house and I find out one of the parents has a gun in the house, I’d at least take a cautionary note of the fact. But if the friend had a swimming pool, I probably wouldn’t give it a second thought. Imagine how dumb I felt when reading – according to Levitt’s data – a child would be 100 times more likely to die at the hands of the swimming pool than the parent’s gun. Wow.

Terror vs. French Fries – Hundreds of billions of dollars have gone into the war on terror, a cause that I support whole heartedly. At the same time, I’m not what you would call a religiously healthy eater and I’ve been known to eat the occasional banquet burger (and fries, with gravy, and a beer). All in all, not abnormal, but concerning when you consider that, as Levitt puts it, “the likelihood of any given person being killed in a terrorist attack are infinitesimally smaller than the likelihood that the same person will clog up his arteries with fatty food and die of heart disease,” not to mention that modifying eating habits is likely to be a) less expensive and b) more successful than guaranteeing protection against terror/extremist attacks.

Couch Potato Tots vs. Literate Babies – Studies from volumes of California elementary school data show that, as compared to factors such as the socio-economic status of parents and low birth weight, the amount of reading a child does at an early age – and as a corollary, the amount of TV they watch – have little or no bearing on a child’s performance in school.

Now, having said all this, don’t get me wrong; am I in favour of tighter gun control? For sure. Am I going to continue reading every day with my son? Definitely. Do I support the war on terror? Without a shadow of a doubt. What I am doing differently though – and why I’d recommend the book – is questioning assumptions that I previously accepted blindly, questioning the underlying rationale behind personal and political decisions and, ultimately, questioning why I support the things that I so often do with passion and vigour. And some of the answers have been very eye-opening…maybe even fodder for an upcoming blog??