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Conventional Wisdom John Galbraith Analysis

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Conventional wisdom, two words which are defined as “generally a theory or a belief” is one of the themes in this book which is often wrong. According to John Kenneth Galbraith, conventional wisdom is comfortable and simple and not necessarily true. The definition Galbraith gave, surprisingly, seems to be accurate. Many people in this world have their own beliefs and theories which don’t necessarily have to be true. What one beliefs as true may not be considered as the truth in someone else’s life. For example, my mom’s beliefs are completely different from her older brother’s, so therefore as Galbraith said, I now understand why conventional wisdom is humble and convenient rather than always being true. In this chapter, the simple and the …show more content…

The authors, in order to distinguish the reason the significant drop in crime, conducted experiments and concluded that three out of all the reason, were erroneously interpreted as causation. As a citizen and as a student in this country, I thought that the increase in the number of police is what caused the crime rate to go down. However, from this chapter, Levitt and Dubner thought me that the three cases - increased reliance on prisons, increased number of police, and changes in illegal drug markets – correlation was interrupted incorrectly. Furthermore, the fact that the effect of legalized abortion, is the explanation of the crime drop left me astonished. In fact learning that the legalization of abortion had a large, statistically significant effect on crime is quiet disturbing. All in all however, it’s nice that legalizing abortion not only reduces the crime rate, but also gives women the right to do what they want. What I did like in this chapter was how the authors gave us two scenarios and they decided to pick one and to expand on it. The way the authors chose to present the information was very helpful because after introducing the three cases, they explained the real cause for the crime rate to drop. As readers and as citizens we would expect the three cases to the solution to crime rate but it was unanticipated to find out at last that abortion and crime rate …show more content…

I found it unusual how the successful school children appeared more to me created than raised. This chapter talked about what parents do verses what parents are and I found it interesting how few factors from the parents’ effect how a child is and how the child is educated. For example, I found it interesting how having books in the home appears to have a positive effect on performance, while reading to the child does not. I thought that reading to a child will make them learn quickly and understand at a faster pace, but apparently it helps to have a bunch of books in the house. In addition, it was mentioned that, what motivates parents and others to worry more about certain risks than others, is focusing on the effects of fear and a misinterpretation of available data. Since the parents are the ones responsible for another creature, they spend a lot of time being scared when it comes to parenting. As a matter of fact, everyone is scared when it comes to parenting but I do agree with the overall message that how the combination of asymmetric information and fear can lead to inefficient outcomes. However what I did like in this chapter was how Levitt and Dubner both concluded the chapter by providing a logical explanation for the empirical

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