HW 9 - Freakonomics Response

In Freakonomics Many different tools were used to provide us with insight on all the topics that were touched upon during the movie, however the 3 that i thought were used the most were finding evidence,asking quesitons, and evaluating the truth. Evidence was an extremely large part of this movie in fact without evidence the movie would not be as convincing as it was. The evidence although almost always statistics i felt gave the viewer more of a connection with what was going on, kepping them involved in the movie rather than just watching it. An example of evidence was during the sumo wrestling portion of the movie where the protaganists showed us that sumo wrestlers would engage in cheating each year tournaments occur to decide the rankings. All tournaments have the same structure: 15 bouts in 15 days for each wrestler, an 8-7 record provides a ranking increase of one place and a 7-8 record decreases a wrestler’s ranking by one spot. With the eighth win worth the most, a wrester going into the final with 7-7 has more to lose than one with 8-6. So if a two wrestler's with those scores fight each other the person with 8-6 would throw the fight and the person with 7-7 would win resulting in a score of 8-7 and 8-7 and both fighters would go up in ranking. The second tool they used was asking questions. An example of this would be during the name portion of the movie when they asked two scientists whether or not your name would determine your life. The protaganists also asked regular people what type of person would have what type of name (Tyrone is a more african american name while Scott would be more of a white name).The thrid tool used was evaluating the truth. An example of this was the ENTIRE MOVIE, The whole movie was about evaluating whether or not something was true. The protaganists wanted to know whether or not a name determines what kind of life you will have or if there was cheating in sumo wrestling or even if paying teenagers money would encourage them to do better school.

The source of evidence they mostly rely on is Statistics, in fact all of there arguments where based on statistics or the production of statistics. This is innovative because it gives the viewer a very new perspective on whatever subject is being discussed. It also genralizes the subject making something very large much more manageble for observation.

Freakonomics does serve as an inspriation and good example to our attempt to explore the "hidden-in-plain-sight" weirdness of dominant social practices because it provides a good template on how to do so. In Freakonomics they asked a lot of questions of both scientists and regular people and did their own investigation into some subjects. In our investigation of foodways i feel that we need to ask more questions to reveal the answer and the right questions reveal the truth. These questions we pose whether to a scientist who specialize in the field or to a normal person all contribute to the larger idea of what is the truth. however non of these questions matter if we dont provide evidence. Without evidence questions and answers would be meaningless, but with evidence we can prove that our answers are right and that the questions we asked provide us that answer.