From the list of overrated books that Tyler links to we have this nomination from economist Diane Coyle:
Freakonomics, Steven D Levitt and Stephen J Dubner (Penguin). Economics as freak show. Depressingly, this seems to be the only way to gain a wider audience for the empress of the social sciences, other than multinational bashing.
The only way to get attention? Not at all. You could always title your book, Sex, Drugs and Economics: An Unconventional Intro to Economics.
Things could be worse. Off the top of my head, I can’t think of a single analytic philosophy book as popular as Levitt’s and Dubner’s, freak show or otherwise.
“a single analytic philosophy book as popular as Levitt’s and Dubner’s”
analytic philosophy. oh really?
At least one can say that Ms Coyle knows of what she speaks.
Thought about reading the Freak thing, but I’d read enough bad press from economists that I respect that I chose other things. I still might pick it up if given the time, but it’s not on the short list.
I was almost surprised to see Bjorn Lomborg’s book on that list, but then, the list of reviewers have their own personal views on things too don’t they. . .
She has got new book coming out; The Soulful Science:
What Economists Really Do and Why It Matters.
http://bayesianheresy.blogspot.com/2006/12/freakonomics-overrated.html
I think the main problem people have with Freakonomics s not that it is bad economics but that it is not economics at all.
The first, oh, about half, of Freakonomic was a GREAT read. After that it wsan’t great for me as it started to exude a leftward spin, something like a NY Times writer might possess.
The Tsunami:
Obviously, I meant “Levitt’s & Dubner’s *BOOK*”.
Yeesh…
Chris and others: Believe it or not, that’s the point of Freakonomics–take economic and econometric methods and apply them to other things to see what’s there.
kvrm: I don’t really care if there’s any there there in Freakonomics. I was just correcting the characterization errors I found above. You’ll notice that I didn’t make any normative statements about the conclusions drawn in the book. Since you have, perhaps you can cite some references that support your assertion of fallacy in the book?
The paper back of Freakonomics, at least in the UK, massively oversells itself with its super glossy, exciting front cover image. Books such as The Armchair Economist do a much better job than Freak, but Freak seems to have been published at just the right time, and the marketing has surely been leveraged to the hilt. Indeed, I wouldn’t be surprised if the marketing guru’s had tried to sell film rights to it.
(http://www.amazon.co.uk/Freakonomics-Economist-Explores-Hidden-Everything/dp/0141019018/sr=1-1/qid=1166489044/ref=sr_1_1/202-1683046-3136624?ie=UTF8&s=books)
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