by Bransby Macdonald-Williams

Created on: February 06, 2007   Last Updated: May 02, 2007

Freakonomics What's all the fuss about?

I got a lot of books for Christmas. I can feel smug knowing that I've used the rampant commercialism of the festive season to "feed my mind". In January I've worked my way through the latest Terry Pratchett, Jared Diamond's excellent Collapse, James Lovelock's Revenge of Gaia, all four of Arthur C. Clarke's Space Odyssey series, and I've just finished Freakonomics by Economist Steven D. Levitt and Journalist Stephen J. Dubner. A quick glance at the cover of the paperback I unwrapped on the morning of December 25th lead me to believe that I was in for a truly life-changing read. Dubbed "a phenomenon" by a critic in The Observer, "Brilliant" by The Sunday Telegraph, and "Non-stop fun" by The Evening Standard, how could I fail to be excited, like a kid with a new book, at the prospect of broadening my mental horizons with such a revolutionary piece of work? Well Ive just finished it and, frankly, I'm very disappointed.

For those who haven't read it, or are blissfully unaware of its existence, Freakonomics claims to have no unifying theme, other than one economist's supposedly innovative way of looking at the world (the journalist appears to have tagged along to supply the not-inconsiderable hype surrounding this view of the world). OK, so what does this radical new way of looking at the world reveal for us? Well, not an awful lot as far as I can tell. Written in a series of chapters, it's not un-entertaining, and did occasionally have me chuckling or even raising my eyebrows in surprise, which is something I suppose, but not enough. The basic premise, (or unifying theme if you will, despite the claimed non-existence of such a thing) is Levitt's identifying interesting or surprising causality or correlation in various social phenomena, through the minute examination of, occasionally obscure, sources of data. So what does he discover? Apparently Sumo wrestlers cheat quite a bit to further their careers! Yes, and? There doesn't appear to be an and', that's it. Sumo wrestlers have an incentive to cheat, and so they do, much like many other professional sportspeople. Apparently it's surprising because Sumo is supposed to be based in honour, and such a pivotal part of Japanese tradition. Well lots of sports have a fine history of tradition and culture, and lots of sportspeople cheat, so you'll excuse me if I don't feel particularly revolutionised. Perhaps this example within the book was to there to make the point that much of what

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