Think Like a Freak

Enhanced descriptions from Syndetics:

In this major national bestseller and follow-up to Superfreakonomics, the Freakonomics authors are back to take us behind the phenomenon and unveil the tools for thinking like a freak.

With their trademark blend of captivating storytelling and unconventional analysis, Steven D. Levitt and Stephen J. Dubner take us inside their thought process and teach us all how to think a bit more productively, more creatively, more rationally. In Think Like A Freak, they offer a blueprint for an entirely new way to solve problems, whether your interest lies in minor lifehacks or major global reforms. The topics range from business to philanthropy to sports to politics, all with the goal of retraining your brain. Along the way, you'll learn the secrets of a Japanese hot-dog-eating champion, the reason an Australian doctor swallowed a batch of dangerous bacteria, and why Nigerian e-mail scammers make a point of saying they're from Nigeria.

Levitt and Dubner plainly see the world like no one else. Now you can too. Never before have such iconoclastic thinkers been so revealing--and so much fun to read.

This paperback edition includes a new Q&A with the authors.

Table of contents provided by Syndetics

• 1 What Does It Mean to Think Like a Freak? (p. 1)
• An endless supply of fascinating questions
• The pros and cons of breast-feeding, fracking, and virtual currencies
• There is no magic Freakonomics tool
• Easy problems evaporate; it is the hard ones that linger
• How to win the World Cup
• Private benefits vs. the greater good
• Thinking with a different set of muscles
• Are married people happy or do happy people marry?
• Get famous by thinking just once or twice a week
• Our disastrous meeting with the future prime minister.
• 2 The Three Hardest Words in the English Language (p. 19)
• Why is "I don't know" so hard to say?
• Sure, kids make up answers but why do we?
• Who believes in the devil?
• And who believes 9/11 was an inside job?
• "Entrepreneurs of error"
• Why measuring cause-and-effect is so hard
• The folly of prediction
• Are your predictions better than a dart-throwing chimp?
• The Internet's economic impact will be "no greater than the fax machine's"
• "Ultracrepidarianism"
• The cost of pretending to know more than you do
• How should bad predictions be punished?
• The Romanian witch hunt
• The first step in solving problems: put away your moral compass
• Why suicide rises with quality of life-and how little we know about suicide
• Feedback is the key to all learning
• How bad were the first loaves of bread?
• Don't leave experimentation to the scientists
• Does more expensive wine taste better?
• 3 What's Your Problem? (p. 49)
• If you ask the wrong question, you'll surely get the wrong answer
• What does "school reform" really mean?
• Why do American kids know less than kids from Estonia?
• Maybe it's the parents' fault!
• The amazing true story of Takeru Kobayashi, hot-dog-eating champion
• Fifty hot dogs in twelve minutes!
• So how did he do it?
• And why was he so much better than everyone else?
• "To eat quickly is not very good manners"
• The Solomon Method
• Endless experimentation in pursuit of excellence
• Arrested!
• How to redefine the problem you are trying to solve
• The brain is the critical organ
• How to ignore artificial barriers
• Can you do 20 push-ups?
• 4 Like a Bad Dye Job, the Truth Is in the Roots (p. 65)
• A bucket of cash will not cure poverty and a planeload of food will not cure famine
• How to find the root cause of a problem
• Revisiting the abortion-crime link
• What does Martin Luther have to do with the German economy?
• How the "Scramble for Africa" created lasting strife
• Why did slave traders lick the skin of the slaves they bought?
• Medicine vs. folklore
• Consider the ulcer
• The first blockbuster drugs
• Why did the young doctor swallow a batch of dangerous bacteria?
• Talk about gastric upset!
• The universe that lives in our gut
• The power of poop.
• 5 Think Like a Child (p. 87)
• How to have good ideas
• The power of thinking small
• Smarter kids at $15 a pop
• Don't be afraid of the obvious
• 1.6 million of anything is a lot
• Don't be seduced by complexity
• What to look for in a junkyard
• The human body is just a machine
• Freaks just want to have fun
• It is hard to get good at something you don't like
• Is a "no-lose lottery" the answer to our low savings rate?
• Gambling meets charity
• Why kids figure out magic tricks better than adults
• "You'd think scientists would be hard to dupe"
• How to smuggle childlike instincts across the adult border.
• 6 Like Giving Candy to a Baby (p. 105)
• It's the incentives, stupid!
• A girl, a bag of candy, and a toilet
• What financial incentives can and can't do
• The giant milk necklace
• Cash for grades
• With financial incentives, size matters
• How to determine someone's true incentives
• Riding the herd mentality
• Why are moral incentives so weak?
• Let's steal some petrified wood!
• One of the most radical ideas in the history of philanthropy
• "The most dysfunctional $300 billion industry in the world"
• A one-night stand for charitable donors
• How to change the frame of a relationship
• Ping-Pong diplomacy and selling shoes
• "You guys are just the best!"
• The customer is a human wallet
• When incentives backfire
• The "cobra effect"
• Why treating people with decency is a good idea.
• 7 What Do King Solomon and David Lee Roth Have in Common? (p. 137)
• A pair of nice, Jewish, game-theory-loving boys
• "Fetch me a sword!"
• What the brown M&M's were really about
• Teach your garden to weed itself
• Did medieval "ordeals" of boiling water really work?
• You too can play God once in a while
• Why are college applications so much longer than job applications?
• Zappos and "The Offer"
• The secret bullet factory's warm-beer alarm
• Why do Nigerian scammers say they are from Nigeria?
• The cost of false alarms and other false positives
• Will all the gullible people please come forward?
• How to trick a terrorist into letting you know he's a terrorist.
• 8 How to Persuade People Who Don't Want to Be Persuaded
• First, understand how hard this will be
• Why are better-educated people more extremist?
• Logic and fact are no match for ideology
• The consumer has the only vote that counts
• Don't pretend your argument is perfect
• How many lives would a driverless car save?
• Keep the insults to yourself
• Why you should tell stories
• Is eating fat really so bad?
• The Encyclopedia of Ethical Failure
• What is the Bible "about"?
• The Ten Commandments versus The Brady Bunch.
• 9 The Upside of Quitting (p. 189)
• Winston Churchill was right-and wrong
• The sunk-cost fallacy and opportunity cost
• You can't solve tomorrow's problem if you won't abandon today's dud.
• Celebrating failure with a party and cake
• Why the flagship Chinese store did not open on time
• Were the Challenger's O-rings bound to fail?
• Learn how you might fail without going to the trouble of failing
• The $1 million question: "when to struggle and when to quit"
• Would you let a coin toss decide your future?
• "Should I quit the Mormon faith?"
• Growing a beard will not make you happy
• But ditching your girlfriend might
• Why Dubner and Levitt are so fond of quitting
• This whole book was about "letting go"
• And now it's your turn.
• Acknowledgments (p. 213)
• Notes (p. 215)
• Index (p. 255)
• Q&A with the Authors (p. 269)

Reviews provided by Syndetics

Publishers Weekly Review

The bestselling bards of gonzo economics return with this new compendium of nifty, if occasionally shallow contrarian mind-warps. This time University of Chicago economist Levitt and journalist Dubner clothe their Freakonmics schtick in flimsy self-help garb by instructing readers on how to "think like a Freak": ignore conventional wisdom; focus on data; test theories with experiments; don't confuse correlation with causality (married people may be happier, they note, because no one wants to marry a grump); most of all, attend to the devious workings of callow self-interest that rule all things (a principle that comically backfires when one of them uses candy bribes to toilet-train his daughter). Levitt and Dubner apply these nostrums to problems having little to do with economics, including competitive hot dog-eating, why Nigerian con artists advertise themselves as Nigerian con artists, and the game-theoretical ploys of King Solomon and David Lee Roth. Their arguments are lucid, catchy, and sometimes dubious; their brief for the efficacy of medieval trial-by-ordeal is no more convincing than their hackneyed attack on Britain's national health system. The result is brief, blithe, but ill-digested provocations that stimulate controversy, but are too sketchy to settle it. (May) © Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.

CHOICE Review

Levitt (economics, Univ. of Chicago) and journalist Dubner, authors of Freakonomics (CH, Nov'05, 43-1689), have written a book for readers and thinkers who are willing to train their brains to think fearlessly. With their trademark blend of storytelling and unconventional analysis, the authors include mini case histories of people whose major discoveries were initially ridiculed. Other information focuses on the surprising role of incentives in such contexts as toilet training, making charitable donations, and quitting jobs. Examples of people ranging from hot dog eating contestants to medical researchers provide insight into new, more productive ways of looking at problems. Readers who follow the guidelines in the book may find themselves admitting they do not know the answers to simple questions, but they will probably have a better understanding of why those questions are the wrong questions. The informal, conversational tone is backed by sound research described in the notes; readers might need to check the notes to determine whether a particular part contains new information or is from an earlier book. --Eileen G. Ferris, Goodwin College

Kirkus Book Review

Co-authors Levitt (Economics/Univ. of Chicago) and journalist Dubner (Super Freakonomics: Global Cooling, Patriotic Prostitutes, and Why Suicide Bombers Should Buy Life Insurance, 2009, etc.) continue on their mission to get people to think in new ways in this lively book about decision and persuasion.Building on their first two books, the authors offer advice for dealing with "minor lifehacks or major global reforms." Most people, they argue, "seek out evidence that confirms what they already think, rather than new information that would give them a more robust view of reality." They urge openness to evidence that may seem obvious, counterintuitive or even childish. Children, they conclude, are much more likely than adults to focus on small, solvable problems rather than "intractable, hopelessly complex" issues. "Small questions are by their nature less often asked and investigated.They are virgin territory for true learning," they assert, and much more likely to inspire change. Nine fast-paced, story-filled chapters offer nuggets of useful advice: Don't be afraid to say, "I don't know." It's essential for learning. Reframe questions: "If you ask the wrong question, you are almost guaranteed to get the wrong answer." Stay alert to the real root cause of a problem; it may be far different from what people generally assume. Levitt and Dubner analyze the upsides and downsides of incentives and consider the insidious power of "herd thinking." Genial storytellers, the authors admit that much of their advice may seem like common sense (and, of course, they covered much of this territory already in their previous books), but they cite study after studyby psychologists, sociologists, educators and scientiststo show that sometimes common sense is severely underutilized.Upbeat and optimistic, Levitt and Dubner hope that by thinking "a bit differently, a bid harder, a bit more freely," readers will be able "to go out and right some wrong, to ease some burden." Copyright Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.