It's fun and clever, but is it true?!?! [or if you think it doesn't matter whether it's true and replicable, it's great salon chatter material, but that wouldn't be science, it would be something above Malcolm Gladwell-grade material.]

It's more from the "interesting-if-true" school of clickbait. It popularized the "amazing counterintuitive results!" school of airport books along with Ariely, Kahneman.

(Conversely, it did have a few benefits: teaching the layman about experiment design, correlation-does-not-imply-causation, instrumental variables.)

(The most plausible-sounding counterintuitive which Freakonomics radio program (on NPR) reported was the claim that participating in the FIFA World Cup tended to reduce overall internal corruption in a country, because if the sports ministry embezzled the money or didn't hire good staff and use it effectively (or at the most basic level, pay players' wages, facilities, travel, jerseys), the country's national team would tend to get beaten embarrassingly by their peers, and the outraged populace would demand reform, not just in sports but other sectors. However, better check if that was replicable or not; it should be, because international tournaments, World Cup player strikes or scandals plus Transparency.org rankings give us "natural experiments" every 2-4 years.)