Think Like a Freak

Think Like a Freak is a nonfiction book published in 2014 by Steven D. Levitt, a professor of economics at the University of Chicago, and Stephen J. Dubner, a journalist based in New York City. It is a follow-up to the authors’ successful books Freakonomics (2005) and SuperFreakonomics (2009), and ties in with their blog and podcast, which can be found at freakonomics.com. A fourth book in the series, When to Rob a Bank, was published in 2015. The popularity of the authors’ brand with this series has roughly corresponded with the use of big data in research, which gained prominence in the 2000s.

Summary

In the first chapter the authors explain their purpose for writing this book. Their two previous books provided explanations to specific questions and problems, which prompted lots of questions from readers looking for solutions to new problems. However, solving problems is not easy, especially not those problems that remain after many people have attempted to solve them. So instead of using the same approach for their third book, they decided to teach readers how to think “like a Freak” themselves, revealing how to use their tools to approach problems.

Chapter 2 discusses why it is so difficult for people to admit they don’t know something, even though that’s the case much of the time.