Freakonomics co-author Stephen J. Dubner uncovers the hidden side of everything. Why is it safer to fly in an airplane than drive a car? How do we decide whom to marry? Why is the media so full of bad news? Also: things you never knew you wanted to know about wolves, bananas, pollution, search engines, and the quirks of human behavior.
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Remember the torture of penmanship class when you were a kid? Now, how often do you take a pen to paper these days? If you’re like the average American, it’s been more than a month since you did. So why do we still bother teaching handwriting in school?
Our take: maybe the steps aren’t so easy, but a program run out of a Toronto housing project has had great success in turning around kids who were headed for trouble.
If U.S. schoolteachers are indeed “just a little bit below average,” it’s not really their fault. So what should be done about it?
The Montgomery Bus Boycott, the South African divestment campaign, Chick-fil-A! Almost anyone can launch a boycott, and the media loves to cover them. But do boycotts actually produce the change they’re fighting for?
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 turning prediction into a science — and now even you could become a superforecaster.
Discrimination can’t explain why women earn so much less than men. If only it were that easy.
Sure, we all want to make good personal decisions, but it doesn’t always work out. That’s where “temptation bundling” comes in.
A team of economists has been running the numbers on the U.N.’s development goals. They have a different view of how those billions of dollars should be spent.
The argument for open borders is compelling — and deeply problematic.
One woman’s quest to find the best burger in town can teach all of us to eat smarter.
He was handed the keys to the global economy just as it started heading off a cliff. Fortunately, he’d seen this movie before.
Even a brutal natural disaster doesn’t diminish our appetite for procreating. This surely means we’re heading toward massive overpopulation, right? Probably not.
In our collective zeal to reform schools and close the achievement gap, we may have lost sight of where most learning really happens — at home.
Lessons from Tom Petty’s rise and another rocker’s fall: A conversation with Warren Zanes, former member of the Del Fuegos and the author of Petty: The Biography.
On the menu: 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.
Researchers are trying to figure out who gets bored — and why — and what it means for ourselves and the economy. But maybe there’s an upside to boredom?
Doctors, chefs, and other experts are much more likely than the rest of us to buy store-brand products. What do they know that we don’t?
The process is famously secretive (and conducted in Swedish!) but we pry the lid off at least a little bit.
When one athlete turned pro, his mom asked him for $1 million. Our modern sensibilities tell us she doesn’t have a case. But should she?
Anne-Marie Slaughter was best known for her adamant views on Syria when she accidentally became a poster girl for modern feminism. As it turns out, she can be pretty adamant in that realm as well.
Suspenders may work better, but the dork factor is too high. How did an organ-squeezing belly tourniquet become part of our everyday wardrobe — and what other suboptimal solutions do we routinely put up with?
From domestic abusers to former child soldiers, there is increasing evidence that behavioral therapy can turn them around.
Conventional programs tend to be expensive, onerous, and ineffective. Could something as simple (and cheap) as cognitive behavioral therapy do the trick?
How a pain-in-the-neck girl from rural Virginia came to run the most powerful university in the world.
We spend billions on end-of-life healthcare that doesn’t do much good. So what if a patient could forego the standard treatment and get a cash rebate instead?
Step 1: Hire a Harvard psych professor as the pitchman. Step 2: Have him help write the script …
What do NASCAR drivers, Glenn Beck and the hit men of the NFL have in common?
There are all kinds of civics-class answers to that question. But how true are they? Could it be that we like to read about war, politics, and miscellaneous heartbreak simply because it’s (gasp) entertaining?
In this episode, we try to answer a few questions: Why is soccer the best sport? How has Harlan Coben sold 70 million books? And why does “Apollo 13” keeps you enthralled even when you know the ending?
The comedian, actor — and now, author — answers our FREAK-quently Asked Questions.
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