Super Freakonomics: Global Cooling, Patriotic Prostitutes, and Why Suicide Bombers Should Buy Life Insurance
Book DescriptionTheNew York Timesbest-sellingFreakonomicswas a worldwide sensation, selling over four million copies in thirty-five languages and changing the way we look at the world. Now, Steven D. Levitt and Stephen J. Dubner return withSuperFreakonomics,and fans and newcomers alike will find that the freakquel is even bolder, funnier, and more surprising than the first.Four years in the making,SuperFreakonomicsasks not only the tough questions, but the unexpected ones: What's more dangerous, driving drunk orwalkingdrunk? Why is chemotherapy prescribed so often if it's so ineffective? Can a sex change boost your salary?SuperFreakonomicschallenges the way we think all over again, exploring the hidden side of everything with such questions as:How is a street prostitute like a department-store Santa?Why are doctors so bad at washing their hands?How much good do car seats do?What's the best way to catch a terrorist?Did TV cause a rise in crime?What do hurricanes, heart attacks, and highway deaths have in common?Are people hard-wired for altruism or selfishness?Can eating kangaroo save the planet?Which adds more value: a pimp or a Realtor?Levitt and Dubner mix smart thinking and great storytelling like no one else, whether investigating a solution to global warming or explaining why the price of oral sex has fallen so drastically. By examining how people respond to incentives, they show the world for what it really is &#150; good, bad, ugly, and, in the final analysis, super freaky.Freakonomicshas been imitated many times over &#150; but only now, withSuperFreakonomics,has it met its match.FromSuperfreakonomics: Where do you stand on the freak-o-meter?Four years ago, you were cool. You readFreakonomicswhen it first came out. You impressed family and friends and dazzled dates with the insights you gleaned. Now Steven D. Levitt and Stephen J. Dubner return withSuperfreakonomics, afreakquel even bolder, funnier, and more surprising than the first.Have you been keeping up?  Can you call yourself a SuperFreak? Test yourSuperfreakonomicsknow-how now:Question 1:5 pointsAccording toSuperfreakonomics, what has been most helpful in improving the lives of women in rural India?A. The government ban on dowries and sex-selective abortionsB. The spread of cable and satellite televisionC. Projects that pay women to not abort female babiesD. Condoms made specially for the Indian marketQuestion 2:3 pointsAmong Chicago street prostitutes, which night of the week is the most profitable?A. SaturdayB. MondayC. WednesdayD. FridayQuestion 3:5 pointsYou land in an emergency room with a serious condition and your fate lies in the hands of the doctor you draw. Which characteristic doesn&#x2019;t seem to matter in terms of doctor skill?A. Attended a top-ranked medical school and served a residency at a prestigious hospitalB. Is femaleC. Gets high ratings from peersD. Spends more money on treatmentQuestion 4:3 pointsWhich cancer is chemotherapy more likely to be effective for?A. Lung cancerB. MelanomaC. LeukemiaD. Pancreatic cancerQuestion 5:5 pointsHalf of the decline in deaths from heart disease is mainly attributable to:A. Inexpensive drugsB. AngioplastyC. GraftsD. StentsQuestion 6:3 pointsTrue or False: Child car seats do a better job of protecting children over the age of 2 from auto fatalities than regular seat belts.Question 7:5 pointsWhat&#x2019;s the best thing a person can do  personally  to cut greenhouse gas emissions?A. Drive a hybrid carB. Eat one less hamburger a weekC. Buy all your food from local sourcesQuestion 8:3 pointsWhich is most effective at stopping the greenhouse effect?A. Public-awareness campaigns to discourage consumptionB. Cap-and-trade agreements on carbon emissionsC. Volcanic explosionsD. Planting lots of treesQuestion 9:5 pointsIn the 19th century, one of the gravest threats of childbearing was puerperal fever, which was often fatal to mother and child.  Its cause was finally determined to be:A. Tight bindings of petticoats early in the pregnancyB. Foul air in the delivery wardsC. Doctors not taking sanitary precautionsD. The mother rising too soon in the delivery roomQuestion 10:3 pointsWhich of the following were not aftereffects of the World Trade Center and Pentagon attacks on September 11, 2001:A. The decrease in airline traffic slowed the spread of influenza.B. Thanks to extra police in Washington, D.C., crime fell in that city.C. The psychological effects of the attacks caused people to cut back on their consumption of alcohol, which led to a decrease in traffic accidents.D. The increase in border security was a boon to some California farmers, who, as   Mexican and Canadian imports declined, sold so much marijuana that it became one of the states most valuable crops.Answers and ScoringQuestion 1B, Cable and satellite TV. Women with television were less willing to tolerate wife beating, less likely to admit to having a &#x201C;son preference,&#x201D; and more likely to exercise personal autonomy. Plus, the men were perhaps too busy watching cricket.Question 2A, Saturday nights are the most profitable. While Friday nights are the busiest, the single greatest determinant of a prostitute&#x2019;s price is the specific trick she is hired to perform. And for whatever reason, Saturday customers purchase more expensive services.Question 3C, One factor that doesn&#x2019;t seem to matter is whether a doctor is highly rated by his or her colleagues. Those named as best by their colleagues turned out to be no better than average at lowering death rates--although they did spend less money on treatments.Question 4C, Leukemia.  Chemotherapy has proven effective on some cancers, including leukemia, lymphoma, Hodgkin&#x2019;s disease, and testicular cancer, especially if these cancers are detected early. But in most cases, chemotherapy is remarkably ineffective, often showing zero discernible effect. That said, cancer drugs make up the second-largest category of pharmaceutical sales, with chemotherapy comprising the bulk.Question 5A, Inexpensive drugs. Expensive medical procedures, while technologically dazzling, are responsible for a remarkably small share of the improvement in heart disease. Roughly half of the decline has come from reductions in risk factors like high cholesterol and high blood pressure, both of which are treated with relatively inexpensive drugs. And much of the remaining decline is thanks to ridiculously inexpensive treatments like aspirin, heparin, ACE inhibitors, and beta-blockers.Question 6False. Based on extensive data analysis as well as crash tests paid for by the authors, old-fashioned seat belts do just as well as car seats.Question 7B, Shifting less than one day per week&#x2019;s worth of calories from red meat and dairy products to chicken, fish, eggs, or a vegetable-based diet achieves more greenhouse-gas reduction than buying all locally sourced food, according to a recent study by Christopher Weber and H. Scott Matthews, two Carnegie Mellon researchers.  Every time a Prius or other hybrid owner drives to the grocery store, she may be cancelling out its emissions-reducing benefit, at least if she shops in the meat section. Emission from cows, as well as sheep and other ruminants, are 25 times more potent as a greenhouse gas than the carbon dioxide released by cars and humans.Question 8C, the 1991 eruption of Mount Pinatubo in the Philippines discharged more than 20 million tons of sulfur dioxide into the atmosphere, which acted like a layer of sunscreen, reducing the amount of solar radiation and cooling off the earth by an average of one degree F.Question 9C, doctors not taking sanitary precautions.  This was the dawning age of the autopsy, and doctors did not yet know the importance of washing their hands after leaving the autopsy room and entering the delivery room.Question 10C, the psychological effect of the attacks caused people to increase their alcohol consumption, and traffic accidents increased as a result.Scoring32-40: Certified SuperFreak25-31: Freak--surprises lay in wait for you16-24: Wannabe freak--you&#x2019;ve got some reading to do1-15: Conventional wisdomer--you&#x2019;re still thinking in old ways