After many years of blogging, and consistent with my desire to move toward retirement, we have ended the Insights blog. Thanks to Doug Bedell for his years of blog support.

Freakonomics: Insights For Our Times

Posted on November 23, 2011
Filed Under Communication | Leave a Comment

Encore’s Dennis Owen is a fan of Freakonomics podcasts, web broadcasts of insights from Stephen J. Dubner and Stephen D. Levitt, the authors of the best-selling book of the same name. “I like the range of things they address and the human behavior aspects of their programs/topics,” he explains.

That’s like Dennis. He has a wide-ranging curiosity and enthusiasm for engaging quirkiness and offbeat creativity, the kind of insights you find in abundance on the Dubner/Levitt Freakonomics blog. For example, they use the vagaries of football to examine the question, “Is Momentum a Myth?” On the Freakomics site, they have a podcast video devoted to the subject that concludes: “The truth is that you’re bound to get a wild 32-point-comeback once in a while, just as you’re bound to get a streak of 10 or 12 heads too. But just as the physical world cannot escape gravity, the statistical world cannot escape what’s called ‘regression to the mean.’ Those wild streaks, as fun as they were, have very little bearing on what happens next.”

So take that from the journalist (Dubner)/ economist (Levitt) team who have hit it off so well as commentators on the vagaries on the fortunes of our lives and times. Check them out, if you haven’t already. – Doug Bedell

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