Nightclubs as Research Labs
Yale Fox, a former Freakonomics intern, is a Canadian DJ who studies nightclub culture. He looks at how music trends, fashion, and even perfumes are the results of codified social behavior at nightclubs. He recently gave a TED talk on the subject: Read More »
The Statistical Significance of Beer
According to a new paper by Stephen T. Ziliak, it was a brewer at the famed Guinness beer company, William Sealy Gosset, who first began to explore the concept of statistical significance:
Read More »Gosset (1876–1937) aka “Student” – he of Student’s t-table and test of statistical significance – rejected artificial rules about sample size, experimental design, and the level of significance, and took instead an economic approach to the logic of decisions made under uncertainty. In his job as Apprentice Brewer, Head Experimental Brewer, and finally Head Brewer of Guinness, Student produced small samples of experimental barley, malt, and hops, seeking guidance for industrial quality control and maximum expected profit at the large-scale brewery. In the process Student invented or inspired half of modern statistics.
Volcanoes and the Little Ice Age
We wrote in SuperFreakonomics about how past volcanic eruptions have resulted in a temporarily cooler planet, thanks to the release of sulfuric ash into the atmosphere. New research indicates that a series of volcanic eruptions may have caused the Little Ice Age:
Read More »The study, led by the University of Colorado Boulder with co-authors at the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR) and other organizations, suggests that an unusual, 50-year-long episode of four massive tropical volcanic eruptions triggered the Little Ice Age between 1275 and 1300 A.D. The persistence of cold summers following the eruptions is best explained by a subsequent expansion of sea ice and a related weakening of Atlantic currents, according to computer simulations conducted for the study.
Does Military Service Lead to Crime?
A new working paper (ungated version) by Jason M. Lindo and Charles F. Stoecker examines the link between military service (in Vietnam) and crime. It has some bad news: “We find that military service increases the probability of incarceration for violent crimes among whites, with point estimates suggesting an impact of 0.27 percentage points.” The authors also find offsetting impacts on nonviolent crime and hypothesize that “military service may not change an individual’s propensity to commit crime but instead may cause them to commit more-severe crimes involving violence.” Read More »
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