Freaky? Economics > “This is a book about feminism and racism written for people who feel either uncomfortable or unwelcome in the great conversation North American society has been having about feminism and racism since the 1960s. It presents an authoritative alternate language in which — not to participate in, but—to dominate that conversation. Dubner and Levitt assure their readers that ‘economics’ is the value-free idiom with respect to which those other, value-laden, idioms can be shown to be misguided at best, stupid at worst, and almost always dead wrong.”
(Via Savage Minds: Notes and Queries in Anthropology — A Group Blog.)
Savage Minds is something I’ve really enjoyed a lot in the past few weeks, so you should check it out, but I really liked this analyis of the pop-social science, book “Freakenomics.”
I must admit that I haven’t really read this book, and I really have no interest, but a lot of people seem to like it which I totally find troubling. Here’s a book which takes social science in the wrong direction: reductive; objective-oriented; and quantitative superiority. Which while not without its merit, is deplorable at its best because it works to invalidate alternate methods and ways of knowing. Which in this case is not at all called for. In my humble opinion. So there.
Cheers, Sam