Freakonomics

The film, “Freakonomics” has several tactics in which the protagonists go about their investigations. One way is by interviewing people in an attempt to understand a more hands on perspective. In doing this they sought out a way to attain the truth from the people who experience the issue themselves. This tactic was used in the sumo section where the tried to figure out if there was cheating in sumo. By interviewing former competitors, one spoke up and admitted that there was indeed cheating going on in sumo, where some matches were rigged.

            Another tool was analyzing statistics in order to uncover the truth behind things. In doing this the protagonists were able to discover how athletes cheated. Although the interviews were very helpful in the exposure of cheating in sumo wrestling, these interviews would not have even been conducted if the statistics were not analyzed. The protagonists looked at the stats and saw that when a fighter had nothing to lose but his opponent was essentially facing elimination, the underdog won roughly 75% of the time. This stat was used to help prove the conspiracy that matches were being rigged.

            Another tool that was used to make conclusions was to conduct experiments. This was done twice in the movie. First, the protagonist sent out several job applications that were exactly the same information; however the names varied, which was the goal of the study. After a while, replies were received, however they were not quite fair. Applications that had names more commonly found in African Americans, such as Deshawn, received replies later than those with names found in white people, like Todd. This study was able to prove that your name may impact your likelihood to receive a job, depending on how you go about it. This investigation was more conclusive than the second, where the results were not very drastic. The study was about bribing students to improve academically. The students were offered money to improve their grades, but unfortunately, less than 10% of the students that were failing improved to passing grades as a result of the bribery.

            The authors mostly rely on statistics and the experiences that people have. This is because they found these sources most reliable, which they were based on the movie. By looking at stats and the experiences of a former athlete, they were able to expose an entire sport of cheating. This is an especially great achievement when realizing the true significance of the sport to the people of Japan. Aside from the entertainment and money, the sport has much tradition behind it.

            I agree that Freakonomics serves as an inspiration and good example to our attempt to explore the "hidden-in-plain-sight" weirdness of dominant social practices. This inspires me because I found it very interesting and was impressed by the insight in their investigations, especially since they investigated such uncommon aspects of life. I never would have expected that a persons name would have such an impact on their success in life. Although a professional stated the name itself was not important, the part where the applications were sent in and the replies were much later in those with black names still was a surprise to me. I found that very interesting and was very disappointed that racism is still around today. In investigating food, it may be possible to make interesting revelations by following the eating habits of two people with roughly the same weight, with relatives (primarily parents/grandparents) that have roughly the same weight, that are physically active roughly the same amount, and that are roughly the same age to observe how they gain/lose weight.