Freakonomics: what went wrong?

americanscientist.org

20 pointsanigbrowl4 comments

Some of those were not very convincing. For instance, it offers the fact that a son of major league baseball player is 800 times more likely to play in the majors than is a random boy as a counter to the Freakonomics claim that practice is what makes stars, not talent.

I don't find that convincing at all. I'd not at all be surprised if the son of the ball player does better simply because he has access to a pro player to help him train and give him advice.

Agreed, this seems like a poor attempt to ridicule a valuable effort by Dubner and Levitt. The authors come across as petty. The write hundres of words pointing out omissions by way of completeness or completely making up controversy (best way to have a child play in the world cup is an obvious exaggeration). Not something that is difficult when examining 7 years worth of work.

Not to mention the whole sabermetrics thing. If conventional baseball wisdom could be so inefficient to allow for the moneyball story then the sport and it's culture is hardly a meritocracy.

Link for those who prefer lines that are not a bazillion characters long: http://www.americanscientist.org/issues/num2/freakonomics-wh...

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