

Freakonomics: what went wrong? - anigbrowl
http://www.americanscientist.org/issues/id.14344,y.0,no.,content.true,css.print/issue.aspx

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tzs
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.

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brg
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.

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phoobahr
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.

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tzs
Link for those who prefer lines that are not a bazillion characters long:
[http://www.americanscientist.org/issues/num2/freakonomics-
wh...](http://www.americanscientist.org/issues/num2/freakonomics-what-went-
wrong/1)

