Two reasons to love the Minneapolis-St. Paul Airport
Reason #1: There is a huge Freakonomics poster on the wall behind the cash register in Authors Bookstore in Terminal C of the airport. Reason #2: They have my favorite…
Whaling was, in the words of one scholar, “early capitalism unleashed on the high seas.” How did the U.S. come to dominate the whale market? Why did whale hunting die…
Why are humans so eager for magic-bullet solutions? Can you explain how a pen works? And how does Angela feel about being forever branded “the grit lady”?…
Evidence from Nazi Germany and 1940s America (and pretty much everywhere else) shows that discrimination is incredibly costly — to the victims, of course, but also the perpetrators. One modern…
In one of the earliest Freakonomics Radio episodes (No. 39!), we asked a bunch of economists with young kids how they approached child-rearing. Now the kids are old enough to…
There are a lot of barriers to changing your mind: ego, overconfidence, inertia — and cost. Politicians who flip-flop get mocked; family and friends who cross tribal borders are shunned….
Psychologist Thomas Curran argues that perfectionism isn’t about high standards — it’s about never being enough. He explains how the drive to be perfect is harming education, the economy, and…
Every year, there are more than a million collisions in the U.S. between drivers and deer. The result: hundreds of deaths, thousands of injuries, and billions in damages. Enter the…
The “beauty premium” is real, for everyone from babies to NFL quarterbacks.
Evidence from Nazi Germany and 1940’s America (and pretty much everywhere else) shows that discrimination is incredibly costly — to the victims, of course, but also the perpetrators. One modern…
In one of the earliest Freakonomics Radio episodes, we asked a bunch of economists with young kids how they approached child-rearing. Now the kids are old enough to talk —…
Experts and pundits are notoriously bad at forecasting, in part because they aren’t punished for bad predictions. Also, they tend to be deeply unscientific. The psychologist Philip Tetlock is finally…
Giving birth in the United States can be dangerous for both moms and their kids. Sometimes, that’s because of too little medical care — and sometimes, it’s the opposite….
Reason #1: There is a huge Freakonomics poster on the wall behind the cash register in Authors Bookstore in Terminal C of the airport. Reason #2: They have my favorite…
There are a lot of barriers to changing your mind: ego, overconfidence, inertia — and cost. Politicians who flip-flop get mocked; family and friends who cross tribal borders are shunned….
There are a lot of barriers to changing your mind: ego, overconfidence, inertia — and cost. Politicians who flip-flop get mocked; family and friends who cross tribal borders are shunned….
In ancient Rome, it was bread and circuses. Today, it’s a World Cup, an Olympics, and a new Saudi-backed golf league that’s challenging the PGA Tour. Can a sporting event…
It used to be that making documentary films meant taking a vow of poverty (and obscurity). The streaming revolution changed that. Award-winning filmmaker R.J. Cutler talks to Stephen Dubner about…
Also: how can we stop confusing correlation with causation?
…of the fake pictures looked like: Participants in the experiment were shown a doctored photo, right (the original is at left), with a caption reading “April 20, 2009: President Obama,…
…sales. The picture in Africa could not be more different. Approximately two-thirds of Africa’s population labors on small, dusty farms, frequently failing to produce enough food to feed their families….
…record of futurologists has taught me humility. H.G. Wells sounds like Edwardian Britain with machines. Aldous Huxley sounds like 1920s New Mexico on drugs. Arthur C. Clarke and Isaac Asimov…
The process is famously secretive (and conducted in Swedish!) but we pry the lid off at least a little bit.
What do Renaissance painting, civil-rights movements, and Olympic cycling have in common? In each case, huge breakthroughs came from taking tiny steps. In a world where everyone is looking for…
…were more likely than subject-matter experts to solve a challenge on that web platform. Intriguingly, women were more likely than men to be successful solvers—which Lakhani thinks may indicate that…
For years, whale oil was used as lighting fuel, industrial lubricant, and the main ingredient in (yum!) margarine. Whale meat was also on a few menus. But today, demand for…
Nobel laureate, bestselling author, and groundbreaking psychologist Daniel Kahneman died in March. In 2021 he talked with Steve Levitt — his friend and former business partner — about his book…
A kitchen wizard and a nutrition detective talk about the perfect hamburger, getting the most out of garlic, and why you should use vodka in just about everything.
Did we needlessly scare ourselves into ditching a good thing? And, with millions of cars driving around with no passengers, should we be rooting for a renaissance?
If we could reboot the planet and create new systems and institutions from scratch, would they be any better than what we’ve blundered our way into through trial and error?…
…(Download/subscribe at iTunes, get the RSS feed, listen via the media player above, or read the transcript.) The risks of driving drunk are well-established; it’s an incredibly dangerous thing to…
