How to Spot Advocacy Science: John Taylor Edition
When data looks too good to be true, it’s often not telling the entire story. An example of how to spot science that smacks of advocacy.
When data looks too good to be true, it’s often not telling the entire story. An example of how to spot science that smacks of advocacy.
As food companies see inflation creeping higher this summer, many are downsizing, reducing the amount of food in their packages but keeping prices–and often–the size of the box, unchanged.
Are good-looking people happier than their unattractive counterparts? A new study says… they are indeed. But the reason why is different for men than it is for women.
A handful of Washington D.C. schools are embroiled in a scandal over whether teachers corrected wrong answers to boost students’ test scores, and thereby, increase their bonuses.
Pi is an irrational number. Which means that as a decimal, it goes on forever. What’s the best way to memorize this infinite chain of numbers? How about music? Or poetry?
Last week, I asked for your advice. I was taking my family (kids are 10 and 9) on their first trip to D.C., and wanted some tips. Your suggestions were fantastic, and it was too bad I could only follow up on a fraction of them. We had a great time (in only 2.5 days). The highlight was a White . . .
A reader named Florian Kern writes from Germany: “I was listening the other day to your very interesting podcast on memory and pain. Yesterday, then, I watched the incredibly boring soccer game between Germany and Kazakhstan.”
One of the hour-long Freakonomics Radio shows we’re currently producing is about prediction — the science behind it, the human need for it, the folly it often produces.
One person you’ll likely hear from in the program is Philip Tetlock, a psychologist at Penn and author of the deservedly well-regarded book Expert Political Judgment. It is a rigorous romp through the minefield of expert prediction, and essentially argues that the words “expert” and “prediction” should almost never occupy the same sentence.
Slate reports that women are making a comeback in the funeral industry: “Today 57 percent of U.S. mortuary school graduates are women, up from 5 percent in 1970. Though this influx is stereotype bashing, it’s also something of a homecoming.”
A few years ago there was a story in the N.Y. Post about a boy who had been locked in a closet almost from the time he was born until he was about fifteen years old. I might not have the exact details right. His parents fed him food but never let him out of the closet. So he never grew properly and he was only about 80 pounds or maybe less. The authorities took him away and put him in some sort of home for abused kids. His parents were arrested and are presumably now in jail.
Eight of the top 100 male economists (according to RePEc’s rankings) write a blog. But of the 39 women who ranked in the top 1,000, none blog.
In the Times, Sam Grobar has written a great article — a great screed, really — about how much people love to complain about their smartphones even though they accomplish so much for so little cost.
State educators are becoming increasingly focused on standardized test performance. But does standardized mathematics really teach kids how to reason?
New research by an FDA economist shows that overweight adolescents who are surrounded by overweight family and friends, don’t consider themselves to be overweight.
High-Frequency trading generates $7 billion in profits with closely-held algorithmic codes, and a fiber-optic infrastructure that executes trades near the speed of light.
Research suggests that when states cut back on their state highway patrol forces, traffic fatalities can rise by double-digits.
Back in 2006, Virginia Commonwealth University launched a program to help acclimate new students, including requiring all incoming freshman to read the same book. Guess which book VCU chose as its inaugural “summer read”?
Two teams from the same city have made it to the Sweet 16, the University of RIchmond and VCU, both from Richmond, VA. What, we wonder, are the odds of that happening?
At one Manhattan pharmacy, you can buy more than just cold medicine. DNAinfo reports that at one Upper West Side Duane Reade, “[y]ou can also replenish your beer supply at the pharmacy’s Brew York City, a service counter that pours out ‘growlers’ of beer, 64-ounce screw-top glass jugs.”
Checking out of the local supermarket yesterday, my wife was thanked for bagging her own groceries. She stopped, then realized that in the U.S. supermarkets have baggers, while the local supermarkets that we shopped at in Germany did not.
In this final installment with BizIntelligence.tv (the first two installments can be found here and here), Bruno and I discuss my new seven-step diet plan, The $500 Diet, and how creating “layers of accountability” can enhance your chance of losing weight and keeping it off.
School of One, the New York City pilot program that aims to give every student a customized education (and the subject of a Freakonomics Radio episode), is about to grow.
I’m back to inviting readers to submit quotations whose origins they want me to try to trace, using my book, The Yale Book of Quotations, and my more recent researches.
David Pennock is one of the smartest guys I know. As a scientist at Yahoo! Research, he’s on the bleeding edge of computer scientists working at the interface with economics. His latest project, called Predictalot, is an amazing new prediction market which allows people to trade on the millions of possible outcomes of the Sweet Sixteen. It’s a brilliant example of just why economists are going to have to get cozy with computer scientists. And David has generously agreed to provide a guest post describing what he’s up to. (And if you want more, he writes the always-interesting Oddhead Blog).
The newest version of the widely used Principles of Economics textbook will run without a Tiger Woods reference: “Previous editions of the textbook used an example entitled, ‘Should Tiger Woods Mow His Own Lawn?’ The sixth edition of the book replaced the previous example with one featuring quarterback Tom Brady…”
Credit-card agreements seem to get longer and longer. Why? Planet Money explains some of the factors, which range from the necessity for less legalese to Congressional reforms.
E-books are growing like crazy. Most of the complaining you may have read is from publishers– that it will be ever harder to stay solvent in an e-book world. But it’s actually authors, not publishers, who take the biggest hit.
New Census data shows that Detroit lost a quarter of its population in the last decade, some 273,000 people. That’s the fastest decline in the history of an American city with more than 100,000 people, leaving Detroit smaller than it was in 1920.
Two economists walk into a Las Vegas casino. They ask to place a $2,500 bet on the Chicago White Sox to win more than half their games this year. The reply from the casino? That’s too risky.
Watch a clip of Freakonomics contributor Ian Ayers speaking to the Royal Society for the Encouragement of Arts, Manufactures and Commerce, about his book, Carrots and Sticks.