Topic: Freakonomics

[Weisshaupt]

Okay, so I finally got around to watching this movie. I had enough liberals recommend it to me  ( while I was telling them about Sowell) that I had put it off.  ( I know there is a Freakonomics book too- no I haven't read it ) Liberals seem to like it because it give them yet another excuse to ignore "conventional wisdom" when they have a mind too-- the actual arguments, and data being rather irrelevant to them ( they seem to forget the details when telling me what they learned)

Having watched it, and while I don't want to bring this up again, I am going to.
One of the segments claims that the Crime Rate drops in the 80s and 90s - Its (not always) such a wonderful life. 

Abortions and Crime: Freakonomics Movie

The basic claim is that Roe V. Wade, by allowing the killing of unwanted (black) babies resulted in fewer individuals willing to engage in crime. Liberals of course only hear "Abortion is good because it lowers crime", and remain ignorant that this was Sanger's plan all along. The sad thing is that the data appears to indicate that, as a practical concern, letting the barbarians sacrifice their own DOES in fact help the rest of us by letting fewer barbarians mature to adult hood. (pun intended)


The rest of the film dances around the problem with black culture in many other ways: like point out giving a kid a black name somehow will lessen his chances of success. (Racism! see?)  Complete with Gratuitous references to naming your child after Obama.   

The Name Game: Freakonomics Movie

They try to attribute it to being "lower class" but pretty much refused to deal with the data and statistics ( Isn't that what they guys do) that indicate that certain (undesirable)  behaviors are correlated with race. 

I don't know and haven't watch enough of the authors to know if they are good at keeping biases out of their research, but the Movie director certainly had an agenda and was careful to only highlight and present such data as would bolster the liberal agenda

Note also this wonderful bit about paying 9th graders to excel:

Bribing Students for Grades: Freakonomics Movie

Note in the end, it doesn't work, and they talk about trying it again in a Preschool and relish the chance to perhaps educate the parents on how to parent!

[EW1(SG)]

Abortions and crime?

Seems pretty weak to me...although the time period you mention is covered quite thoroughly in Lott's third edition of "More Guns, Less Crime."  That time period saw a very extensive liberalization of gun laws, and although the correlation to crime is actually between concealed carry liberalization and violent crime, I think that's a much stronger correlation than abortion relating to a decrease in crime.

[IronDioPriest]

Abortions and crime?

Seems pretty weak to me...although the time period you mention is covered quite thoroughly in Lott's third edition of "More Guns, Less Crime."  That time period saw a very extensive liberalization of gun laws, and although the correlation to crime is actually between concealed carry liberalization and violent crime, I think that's a much stronger correlation than abortion relating to a decrease in crime.

I agree. Although I've not read Lott's book, I've heard him many times as a regular guest on the Jason Lewis Show, and I've read his articles on these here webs. The correlation between the liberalization of concealed carry law and subsequent drops in violent crime has been repeated and documented too many times in too many places over too long a period for the correlation to be anything but genuine. Nothing nebulous or tenuous about it. It's a universal truth, unless one chooses to go through gyrations of illogic.

[Weisshaupt]

I agree. Although I've not read Lott's book, I've heard him many times as a regular guest on the Jason Lewis Show, and I've read his articles on these here webs. The correlation between the liberalization of concealed carry law and subsequent drops in violent crime has been repeated and documented too many times in too many places over too long a period for the correlation to be anything but genuine. Nothing nebulous or tenuous about it. It's a universal truth, unless one chooses to go through gyrations of illogic.

There is seldom one factor at work. The drop in crime rate can be due to gun laws, enforcement, etc etc. however . I think its very possible that abortion  IS a factor in the mix. We can argue about weighting, and of course the video doesn't discuss how the authors determined theirs, but there is a logical sense to it, especially since States that legalized abortion a few years earlier, also experience the drop in crime ahead of the others. Circumstantial no doubt, but I can't eliminate it based on that.  Causation is tricky. Correlation is easy.

[IronDioPriest]

...Causation is tricky. Correlation is easy.

True enough. But correlation repeated over time forming an idenitifiable pattern strongly indicates causation, even if it doesn't prove it outright.