Freak Out!

(Weekly Standard)  This column was written by Dean Barnett.

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Steven D. Levitt claims that physically he is the "weakest human being alive." He may also be one of the most courageous.

Along with his coauthor Stephen Dubner, Levitt has written a book called Freakonomics, which details his innovative and brilliant way of looking at the world. Levitt's mind works in the following manner: First he asks questions that few have the creativity to ask; then he follows a rigorous statistical analysis to find the answers.

Some of Freakonomics' conclusions are fearlessly contrarian. To wit, Levitt posits, among other things, that some teachers are cheaters, real estate agents tend not to serve their clients' best interests, successful parenting has a lot more to do with who the parents are than how they actually parent, and crime rates dropped in the 1990s as a direct result of 1973'sRoe v. Wade decision. In spite of the controversy that Freakonomics is almost certain to cause, Levitt has produced a work full of stunning insights that can rightfully be called genius.

Perhaps the best way to describe Levitt to the literary world would be this: Imagine Malcom Gladwell, the gifted author of The Tipping Point and Blink. Supplement Gladwell's considerable gifts for observation and detail with what Gladwell himself calls America's "most interesting mind" and you've got Levitt.

Levitt graduated Harvard in 1989 summa cum laude and received a Ph.D. in economics from MIT in 1994. After becoming a chaired professor at Chicago at the tender age of 35, Levitt recently won the John Bates Clark medal, which is awarded every two years to America's best economist under the age of 40. (The Clark medal is widely viewed as a precursor for an eventual Nobel Prize.)

The entire purpose of Freakonomics is to reveal counterintuitive and often unsettling truths. Levitt aims to show the world how it is, not how we wish it were or how the "conventional wisdom" deems it.

Levitt knew that exposing such truths would cause no small amount of offense in numerous quarters. In one chapter sure to make enemies, Levitt asks, "What do school teachers and sumo wrestlers have in common?" The answer: Both groups are willing to cheat. I don't want to ruin all the fun and describe how Levitt reaches his almost undebatable conclusion, but one must admire the audacity of a man so willing to stand up to both the teachers' unions and sumo wrestlers.

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