Guilty Planet

In 2006, I bought Steven Levitt and Stephen Dubner's first book Freakonomics and, like the four million other people who bought the book, thought it was excellent.  It was full of originality with chapters on why parents disadvantage their children with bad names and why crack dealers live with their mothers. For this reason (plus the fact that I spent $30 and drove a total of 3 hours), I had high expectations when I went to see the pair in Seattle last night. Sadly, I left feeling that Levitt and Dubner seem to be suffering from a bad case of overexposure.

I should have seen the writing on the walls of Town Hall. For one, their latest book has the title of their old book in its title -- for someone seeking novelty, a sequel is not one's best bet. Furthermore, the talk was structured in that awful way that attendance required buying a copy of the book (hence the $30 price tag; strike two). And nothing could save Levitt and Dubner from the corny radio show host's introduction and on-stage interview (it turned out to only be a Q&A, not an official talk). All the event lacked was a theme song.

Their two man show was too relaxed and too predictable. Predictable? How can two men who argue (poorly -- according to a letter published at RealClimate.org by Geophysical Science professor Raymond T. Pierrehumbert) in favor of geoengineering global cooling be predictable? I think they thought the tension around 'global cooling' would predictably sell books and talks. Dubner spoke of the prostitution market with similarly coy looks.

I fear their sophistication was overshadowed by flippancy. For evidence, Levitt spoke about global cooling garden hoses to the sky, proposed by Nathan Myhrvold of Bellevue's own Intellectual Ventures (who was not in attendance), the same way Cousteau talked about colonizing the oceans by the year 2000 (note: we did not accomplish this).

I always consider a speaker in three categories: Are they likable? Are they credible? Are they critical? Levitt and Dubner are passing in the credible category since they have the two books and Levitt does respectable and compelling economics research. But their talk was only slightly critical (mostly of car seats for toddlers ages 2 to 6) and the duo was strangely unlikeable despite their smiles and anecdotes. Maybe a theme song would help...