Scepto-nomics (a review of "Freakonomics")

Image via Wikipedia

 Steven D. Levitt stormed onto the social science scene like a rock star with his unconventional questioning and sometimes controversial conclusions on certain matters. He has come to define the term “rogue economist” and has made numbers sexy. At least that is the way his co-author Stephen J. Dubner wants us to see him. “Freakonomics” introduced Levitt to a far wider audience outside of the world of academic papers by asking unusual questions about a vast array of subjects in modern life. Each chapter is based on the academic work that cemented Levitt’s reputation for good or ill. Levitt is presented as being something of a mental enigma and I guess Dubner is his translator to us mere mortals. This debut book looks at links between such disparate subjects as cheating school teachers and rigged sumo matches. He uncovers the reason why estate agents don’t have your best interests at heart when it comes to selling property by tenuously linking this truth to what led to the growth and decline of the Ku Klux Klan. Along the way, the certain myths about the drug industry are blown apart by asking the question “Why do drug dealers live with their parents?”

Bad History: A Review

It’s quite disappointing to see how much flack this excellent little book has received. I was under no illusion that the book I was about to read was going to be a light read. The book’s title does imply that it is to be considered to be in the same category as Ben Goldacre’s “Bad Science” and Phil Plait’s “Bad Astronomy”. Despite both of these books being written for a lay audience they were not shot in details or text. Emma Marriot’s slim collection of short essays might be with Goldacre and Plait in sentiment, but the work isn’t intended to educate the reader in good historical research. However, it does provide examples of what good research achieves and how good historians view the past. Unfortunately I think many history buffs were looking forward to a heavily cited and in depth analysis of historical myths and a debunking of pseudohistory; not a book strictly for academics, but nevertheless one with a scholarly appeal. Recent years have seen some good academics, like Richard J Evans take on the postmodern anti-historical wave and others like David Aronovitch, Kathryn S. Olmsted and even sceptical scientist Michael Shermer produce sterling investigations that both debunk and seek to understand the nature of conspiracy theory.

Critical Thinking for Health and Medicine

Image by EadaoinFlynn via Flickr"Bad Science" is a modern classic of scientific sceptical movement. Its importance and influence easily rank it alongside the defining works of Carl Sagan, Martin Gardener, James Randi, Michael Shermer, David Aaronvitch, Christopher Hitchens, Richard Dawkins, Carol Tavris, Paul Kurtz, Sam Harris and Phil Plait. My rather unscientific mind put it on my "to read" list for way too long. As I learnt more about the scientific method and critical thinking from subjects I was more comfortable with like history or the social sciences, I slowly made my way to Goldacre's book with trepidation.

As it turns out, and according to Goldacre, this is the problem. The general public are confused by science and therefore untrusting of it, which makes them more susceptible to pseudoscience, quackery and manipulation on a grand scale. Whether it is buying ineffective "natural" cures from nutritionist quacks to over-priced and under-tested drugs from devious pharmaceutical companies, Ben Goldacre fears that an ignorant public is being duped and the consequences can be catastrophic.

Justify this! A review of "Mistakes were Made (but not by me)"

Cover via Amazon
This is the second book I have read that looked at the nature of human error. The first one, "Being Wrong: Adventures in the Margin of Error" by Kathryn Schulz, was a half-philosophical work that looked at the whole scope of wrongness and our relationship with it. Although scientifically sound, Schulz's excellent work was far more to do with making peace with mistakes. Similar aspects are also present in Carol Tavris and Elliot Aronson's joint work, "Mistakes Were Made (but not by me)", but this is a far less sympathetic book driven by the passion of two straightforward and eminent psychologists who focus specifically on the human reaction to personal error. Tavris was given a special award for her working contribution towards the empirical scientific sceptical movement and "Mistakes Were Made (but not by me)" seems destined to be the sceptic's go-to work on the phenomena of confirmation bias.

Bad Thinking, Bad Company

I had good intentions for this post to be the first of my icon series of articles, but this is taking longer than what I had originally intended. Anyway, today I just heard an excellent podcast from Brian Dunning that nicely linked with a previous article I wrote on peer pressure (http://beelzebubsbroker.blogspot.com/2009/05/convince-little-man-peer-pressure-in.html) Peer pressure wasn't the focus of Dunning's podcast, but it certainly has a strong role to play. Whereas I discussed how good people can do evil things, Dunning argues that intelligent people can think stupid things. Dunning warns us of the common ad hominem argument mistake made by his fellow sceptics when it comes to facing people who have erronous ideas. As Michael Shermer points out in his book "Why People Believer Weird Things", intelligent people can also think the craziest ideas and have the most odd beliefs. Of course, what we often find is that these bright people have had a certain circle of influence that has fed these peculiar ideas into their minds. In turn the zealous believer, regardless of his intelligence level, will use confirmation bias to cherry pick anything he feels supports his belief, often dismissing all contradictory evidence.

Here is the written script of the podcast, which I urge you to download. Please ignore the title the piece has little to do with politics:
http://skeptoid.com/episodes/4160#

Don't forget to check out Jamie Clubb's main blog www.jamieclubb.blogspot.com

Related articles by Zemanta

• Skeptoid party! (blogs.discovermagazine.com)
• So, you wanna be a skeptic? (blogs.discovermagazine.com)
• 3 ways the brain creates meaning: Tom Wujec on TED.com (ted.com)