Did you know that a prostitute in Chicago is more likely to have sex with a cop than be arrested by one? Did you think that it was dangerous to drink and drive? Well, you’re not wrong, but did you ever think about the fact that walking drunk is eight times more likely to get you killed than driving drunk?
It is these interesting twists of perception and everyday occurrences that Steven Levitt, an economics professor at the University of Chicago, and Stephen Dubner, the author of several books, have packed into“SuperFreakonomics.”
Freakonomics, the name of the first book that caused a global sensation, is the simple idea of “marrying the economic approach to a rogue freakish curiosity.” According to the authors, the essential message of all the varied and, well freakish, facts and figures, is that microeconomics can reveal a fundamental truth about human beings: “people respond to initiatives.”
Take the example of seat belts for instance. Seat belts reduce the risk of death by as much as 70 percent; but even after 15 years from when seat belts were introduced in the United States, just 11 percent of people wore them. It took a range of ‘nudges’ such as advertising campaigns and annoying beeping sounds in cars — which became the real incentive for a change in behavior, as opposed to the reduction in the death rate — over a 30-year period to achieve the current day rate of 80 percent of Americans wearing seat belts.
This book is packed with fascinating insights. But the essential problem with the concept of “Freakonomics” is that it makes great assumptions on very specific points, based upon data that is often more varied. This is most obvious when the pair tackle terrorism.
Levitt and Dubner based their argument for the type of person that commits terrorism on the research of Alan Krueger, an economist at Princeton University. Krueger used a Hezbollah newsletter Al-Ahd to collect bibliographical data for 129 shahids, or martyrs. From this data Krueger concluded: “terrorists tend to be drawn from well educated, middle-class or high-income families.”
This holds true around the world from Latin American rebels to the 9/11 attackers, Krueger claims.
It is easy to see that Krueger’s data input is highly flawed. Going back to the original piece of
research, Krueger himself admits as much. “The deceased Hezbollah fighters were involved in a mix of activities, not all of which might be classified as terrorist attacks. An attack on a military post was the most common type of activity… Three died in suicide bombing attacks.”
So categorizing the attacks carried out by those listed in Al-Ahd very much depends on your definition of terrorism, which is admittedly its own minefield. Trying then to boil down all these different military tactics to a single concept of terrorism and to then discover whether “terrorists” are from ‘good’ or ‘bad’ backgrounds is evidently a lot more complicated than Levitt and Dubner, or Krueger for that matter, would like to admit.
How useful is it, even if you were able to confirm that all the 129 shahids were terrorists, to make a general assumption about the social background of terrorists in general? Hezbollah, an organization that is very well integrated into the social political fabric of its own Shiite community, has little in common, even if you agreed they are both terrorist organizations, with the highly fractured and cell-like structure of Al-Qaeda.
Making sweeping generalizations can be useful in some cases and completely misleading in others. This is a warning that Levitt and Dubner do not always heed, and appropriate caution should be used when reading their book. But in removing this caution and taking risks, Levitt and Dubner have created fascinating insights.
In effect, “SuperFreakonomics” asks more questions than it answers. Like good students, Levitt and Dubner challenge conventional wisdom throughout the book, from issues of terrorism to global warming to prostitutes. Even when they don’t get it right they do make you think again.
Levitt and Dubner challenge conventional wisdom, from terrorism to global warming to prostitutes
