Freakonomics

Unlike Henry, I actually loved Freakonomics. Highly recommended. For the benefit of my reading audience, I’ll just highlight some interesting statistics from the book, sans context and explanation. You can (and should) read it yourself for the full story.

• Statistically, the amount of money spent by a politial candidate makes virtually no difference in the vote. Doubling or halving spending exacts roughly a 1 percent change in either direction.
• In a presidential election year, about $1 billion total is spent on campaign finance. Seems like a lot, but in perspective, that’s roughly how much is spent by Americans in a year on chewing gum.
• Drinking 8 glasses of water a day has never been shown to do anything for your health.
• When given money for donating blood (as opposed to just receiving thanks), people tend to donate less blood.
• When comparing real-estate agents selling their own houses to selling other people’s houses, they keep their houses on the market an average 10 extra days and sell for over 3 percent more. On a $300,000 house (double that in the Bay Area), that’s $10,000. Problem is, the agent’s commission on that difference is $150. So there’s not much incentive for the agent to get that extra difference when selling your house, as opposed to his own.
• Five terms in real-estate ads correlated to a higher sales price: “Granite”, “State-of-the-Art”, “Corian”, “Maple”, “Gourmet”.
• Five terms correlated to a lower sales price: “Fantastic”, “Spacious”, “!”, “Charming”, “Great Neighborhood”
• Statistically, there is discrimination by players in The Weakest Link. Not against blacks or women, but against the elderly and Hispanics.
• Some statistics on dating sites, based on which factors garner the greatest responses: for men, women’s looks matter a lot. For women, men’s income. The richer a man, the more responses he gets. For women, it’s a bell-curve, neither too poor nor too rich get the most responses. Men being short hurts, but weight doesn’t matter. Women’s weight matters a lot.
• You have a greater chance of dying while dealing crack in a Chicago housing project than while sitting on death row in Texas.
• Until the 80s, pretty much all aspects of life were improving for black Americans. Then crack was introduced. After declining for decades, black infant mortality rates soared in the 80s. The gap between black and white students widened. The number of blacks sent to prison tripled. Within 5 years, the homicide rate among young urban blacks quadrupled. Black Americans were hurt more by crack cocaine than by any other single cause since Jim Crow.
• In the early 90s, the crime rate fell sharply and suddenly, reversing years of increase. Statistically, this can’t be attributed to common explanations such as greater imprisonment, a better economy, more policing. The almost certain cause: Roe v. Wade and the huge numbers of abortions that followed. In states where abortion was made legal earlier, crime rates fell earlier. States with the highest abortion rates in the 70s had the greatest crime drops in the 90s. There are many other correlations. It’s disturbing, and not a value judgment, just a statistically fact.
• There are 1.5 million abortions every year. There are 15,000 homicides every year.
• The cost of protecting the northern spotted owl from extinction comes out to $9 million per owl.
• Each year, one child drowns for every 11,000 residential pools in the U.S. One child is killed for every million plus guns. A child is roughly 100 times more likely to die in a swimming accident than at a house with a gun.
• Some of the statistics in More Guns, Less Crime are possibly made up. Regardless of their veracity, other researchers haven’t been able to duplicate the findings.
• The per hour chance of death is roughly equal between driving and flying.
• Child car seats barely make any difference in safety. All that matters is that they not be in the front seat.
• Monday Night Football is the only show on the lists of 10 most popular shows for both blacks and whites. Seinfeld was never in the top 50 shows for blacks.