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One of the strangest unintended consequences of abortion, of legalized abortion, was that it drives the crime rate down because what abortion really was, was a mechanism for which fewer unwanted children could be born.

- Stephen J. Dubner
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Stephen J. Dubner
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'Freakonomics' began with a 'N.Y. Times Magazine' profile I wrote about Steve Levitt. I was working on a book about 'the psychology of money,' and since Levitt's an economist, my editor thought I'd be the guy to write about him. Fact is that Levitt has almost no interest in either psychology or money.

Think small. Don't pretend you know the answers. Experiment; get feedback. These are all the premises of 'Think Like a Freak,' really.

We're surrounded by big problems and people who have been attacking the same big problems for years and years and years and years, and often they're not getting anywhere.

When most people think of economists, they think of macro-economists. Macro-economists try to describe or - even harder - predict the movements of a hugely dynamic system. They're like a transplant surgeon trying to simultaneously transplant every failing organ in someone's body.

What I think of as 'freakonomics' is mostly storytelling around an idea - not a theme but an idea. I like ideas much more than themes. Themes are boring. Themes are, 'Wool is back,' but ideas are, 'Why is wool back?'

I think the most fundamental error we make is mistaking a noisy, anomalous event for the norm. This happens all the time - in the stock market, in reports of crime and natural disaster, etc. The fact is that big, noisy, anomalous events catch our attention because they're anomalous, which isn't a problem in and of itself.

Cancer is, in general, an increasingly important topic, in part because we've gotten so good at preventing other forms of death that cancer, despite some gains made against it, is becoming even more prominent.

I love sports, and I love playing sports.

The world is complicated. But does every problem require a complicated solution?

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One of the strangest unintended consequences of abortion, of legalized abortion, was that it drives the crime rate down because what abortion really was, was a mechanism for which fewer unwanted children could be born.

One of the strangest unintended consequences of abortion, of legalized abortion, was that it drives the crime rate down because what abortion really was, was a mechanism for which fewer unwanted children could be born.

One of the strangest unintended consequences of abortion, of legalized abortion, was that it drives the crime rate down because what abortion really was, was a mechanism for which fewer unwanted children could be born.

One of the strangest unintended consequences of abortion, of legalized abortion, was that it drives the crime rate down because what abortion really was, was a mechanism for which fewer unwanted children could be born.

One of the strangest unintended consequences of abortion, of legalized abortion, was that it drives the crime rate down because what abortion really was, was a mechanism for which fewer unwanted children could be born.

One of the strangest unintended consequences of abortion, of legalized abortion, was that it drives the crime rate down because what abortion really was, was a mechanism for which fewer unwanted children could be born.

One of the strangest unintended consequences of abortion, of legalized abortion, was that it drives the crime rate down because what abortion really was, was a mechanism for which fewer unwanted children could be born.

One of the strangest unintended consequences of abortion, of legalized abortion, was that it drives the crime rate down because what abortion really was, was a mechanism for which fewer unwanted children could be born.

One of the strangest unintended consequences of abortion, of legalized abortion, was that it drives the crime rate down because what abortion really was, was a mechanism for which fewer unwanted children could be born.

One of the strangest unintended consequences of abortion, of legalized abortion, was that it drives the crime rate down because what abortion really was, was a mechanism for which fewer unwanted children could be born.

One of the strangest unintended consequences of abortion, of legalized abortion, was that it drives the crime rate down because what abortion really was, was a mechanism for which fewer unwanted children could be born.

One of the strangest unintended consequences of abortion, of legalized abortion, was that it drives the crime rate down because what abortion really was, was a mechanism for which fewer unwanted children could be born.

One of the strangest unintended consequences of abortion, of legalized abortion, was that it drives the crime rate down because what abortion really was, was a mechanism for which fewer unwanted children could be born.

One of the strangest unintended consequences of abortion, of legalized abortion, was that it drives the crime rate down because what abortion really was, was a mechanism for which fewer unwanted children could be born.

One of the strangest unintended consequences of abortion, of legalized abortion, was that it drives the crime rate down because what abortion really was, was a mechanism for which fewer unwanted children could be born.