Hw # 9 - Freakonomics

A tool the protagonists in "Freakonomics" used were conducting experiments to find evidence to determine the truth. An example of this was when they conducted one in a school by giving high school students money as an incentive to get their grades up. But in the end the reality was many didn't, only 5-7% had a change in their grades. Another tool was asking questions by surveying people, when they talked about the baby names they had several moments in film where they showed people being asked questions and what they thought about names. Giving them more evidence for the truth. Last tool I saw they used was evaluating the research, in the one about sumo wrestlers and how it seemed tobe the purest of sports they still had cheating. So they evaluated the numbers the sumo wrestlers would have in many matches to see a common occurence. And it seemed that those who were already assured to next round would let a companion who just needed one more win would let them.

I agree that Freakonomics serves as an inspiration and good example to our attempt to explore the hidden – in – plain – sight” weirdness of dominant social practices because they show evidence and real – life situations that let people know the “truth” of things. Like how names don’t change who you are or become, but where you grow up and your economic class does. Their example was a girl named Temptress who didn’t act the way she did because of her name but because of where she grew up. In a poor neighborhood and single mom household. Another example was the two kids named winner and loser, and loser ended being the actual winner graduating college and having the good life, while winner was a convict and in jail. Showing that your name won’t determine whether you’ll become a screw up or successful in life. I understood that it could affect you in life as in more/less job opportunity but can’t affect your life in a huge way.

These are things most may not know even though it seems obvious especially for those out there who hire baby name specialists just so their child won’t be a failure. This reminded me of my current math class and how sometimes the truth is not as obvious as we think, and an example was if there are more colored people jail, doesn't that make a colored person more likely to be a criminal? Well we learned using logic that this wasn't true it didn't actually make them any more likely to be a criminal than any other person. But cops still stop colored people more than any Caucasians. Weird. We could possibly conduct an experiment we think answer would be obvious to see if it actually is, like determine whether it is true those who eat meat are the ones more obese than those who don't? Maybe the answer won't be as obvious as we think.