Sunday, October 18, 2009

Why I dropped the Freakonomics blog

I didn’t drop the Freakonomics blog (Levitt and Dubner) just because of their anti-rational climate change ploy.

I admit, the thorough evisceration by (via DeLong) Last Post on Superfreakonomics, SuperFreakonomics- Global Cooling, Superfreakonomics on climate, RealClimate- Why Levitt and Dubner like geo-engineering, Does -Superfreakonomics- Need A Do-Over and so many others did take a toll.

In the end though, it took a lethal blow from CT to do them in. There’s a world of difference between original thought and faux contrarianism. As fun as Levitt and Dubner have sometimes been, they’ve hit the media bottle too many times. They can no longer distinguish between skeptical thinking and the intellectual vice of fashionable thought.

Velikovsky was a contrarian. I doubt Levitt and Dubner aspired to his company, but that’s where they’ve ended up.

Not to worry though, I’m sure their book earnings will ease the pain of my departure.

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