Freakonomics Critical Response #1

In the introduction of "Freakonomics" the authors establish their ethos through their extensive knowledge of world affairs combined with statistics, quotes and their exceptional writing abilities. The reader is supposed to think "outside the box" as the information from the authors is presented to them. These accumulation of points create a sense of trust and believability among the readers in relation to the authors' credibility.

The authors quickly jump into their first point and argument in the introduction when they introduce the first topic: crime. Crime in the early 1990's was apparently a huge problem and experts were telling the American people that it was only going to get worse. The authors cite Former President Bill Clinton as a person who proclaimed crime would only get worse. The President said "We know we've got about six years to turn this juvenile crime thing around, or our country is going to be living with chaos" (Levitt and Dubner 2). But shortly after, in the mid 90's the crime rates actually began to fall dramatically. Levitt and Dubner's explanation of this was far from the mainstream idea that gun control, improved policing and the economy reversed the spread of crime. They instead chose to highlight the supreme court case, Roe v. Wade which legalized abortion in the United States. Their explanation was that a whole generation of criminals were never born because low income mothers whose children were more susceptible to committing crimes, were no longer having children. While this explanation of events is certainly not the most obvious, it does however make sense in an abstract train of thought.

Another idea of "conventional wisdom" that the authors debunked was that money wins elections. The generalization is that the more money a politician spends on their election campaign, the more likely they are to win. Levitt and Dubner came to a different conclusion through data they attained from elections however. They said that "the amount of money spent by the candidates hardly matters at all. A winning candidate can cut his spending in half and lose only 1 percent of the vote" (Levitt and Dubner 9). Levitt and Dubner said that it's not how much money you spend, it's how appealing you are to voters. The authors also give examples of extremely wealthy individuals who have run for office and did not win such as Malcom Forbes and Arianna Huffington.

Using clever writing techniques and use of real world examples and data, Levitt and Dubner increase their ethos and entice the reader into continuing to read and yearning to learn more. Considering these qualities, the authors are convincing enough to make the reader beleive that they are a reliable source.