A quick Google search for these names uncovers a prominent urban legends site, Snopes.com, and another site debunking the names as an urban legend.
I wrote to the authors alerting them to this, and one of the authors, Stephen Dubner, wrote back:
Yes, we acknowledge this in the endnotes. Just because they are called urban legends doesn't mean, of course, that they aren't true. We're still trying to figure it out. Any leads appreciated. SJD
Shame on me for not reading the endnotes, but shame on them for citing something for which they had no evidence as fact without so much as an asterisk leading us to the endnotes. What else in the book was just made up?
That got me to thinking more about how the book is marketed. It's called Freakonomics: A Rogue Economist Explores the Hidden Side of Everything. Economics gone freaky? Rogue? They are definitely trying to pique our interest. Bright orange and green text on the cover. A photo of an orange inside an apple. Promises on the jacket to tell us why swimming pools are more dangerous than guns.
Apparently the marketing worked. It's been a best seller for four-months running. At least, that is, according to Freakonomics.com.
I wonder if any of their success can be attributed to some of their questionable claims? I read parts of The Arts of Deception: Playing with Fraud in the Age of Barnum (thanks,
![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif?v=92.1){kind=small}
lilyblack, for letting me borrow it), which basically said that questionable claims lead to insatiable desire on the part of the public to personally investigate the claims and decide for themselves.Perhaps Lemonjello and Orangejello are Levitt and Dubner's Feejee Mermaid, and the rest of us are buying the book to see what if we can pronounce it the genuine article, or complete fraud.
I'm voting fraud, in case you hadn't guessed. And if that was their intention, then I'm calling them brilliant frauds.
August 3 2005, 17:14:32 UTC 6 years ago
August 3 2005, 17:19:39 UTC 6 years ago
It's an interesting book, but I remain skeptical of certain claims made by the authors.
August 3 2005, 17:21:30 UTC 6 years ago
August 3 2005, 17:28:09 UTC 6 years ago
Suckers.
August 3 2005, 17:47:32 UTC 6 years ago
Did something about the book make you angry?
August 3 2005, 18:09:11 UTC 6 years ago
The authors have also come under pressure from the Children's Hospital of Pennsylvania, the unfortunately named "CHOP", for implying that child safety seats are unnecessary and that it is not discernibly different from buckling up a little kid in the backseat of a car: http://www.chop.edu/consumer/news/s
And although they mention several times that correlation is not causation, they way they present information in the book certainly glosses over that. I think the book represents sensationalism-for-profit at its finest.
Other parts of the book were fascinating. You've read it, I assume? I'd never heard of Stetson Kennedy before—that was fantastic.
I also enjoyed the authors' somewhat gruesome analysis of "what if, in your value system, 100 fetuses were worth one birth?" although, again, I feel that they implied that abortion led to lower crime rates, when all they had data to show is that abortion rates were closely correlated, inversely, with crime rates.
August 3 2005, 18:17:12 UTC 6 years ago
I guess I took the book less seriously -- sort of like they were saying, "look at this statistic, isn't this interesting," rather than, "clearly this proves X".
Like they were just trying to show you that stats can be presented many different ways and that conventional wisdom is often wrong, not that they had an agenda pro or con with any of the points they made. (In fact, I thought the fact that their politics were hard to determine was a point in their favor.)
I see what you mean about the swimming pool thing, but as with all their points, I thought they bracketed it with enough "Now, we're not saying you should or shouldn't have either one," -type language that it was hard to take issue with it.
On the abortion point, I read their analysis as being: "There is a lot of data to support this conclusion, even more than any of these other things that the media is always telling us are the real causes, which because of X,Y, and Z you can see is unlikely." So yes, they implied it, but only through showing greater correlation and explaining how it might logically be construed to be causation. To me, that's an improvement over the blind assertion I see in most other media, so I didn't have a huge problem with it.
August 3 2005, 21:39:35 UTC 6 years ago
re: "The Book Certainly Glosses Over That"
re: " although they mention several times that correlation is not causation, they way they present information in the book certainly glosses over that."I didn't perceive the "glossing over" part.
In fact, I thought one of the book's objectives was a call for us to palpate the futility of causation analysis, while enriching ourselves with probes of statistical relationships between factors. Such revamped objectives in the social sciences would provide us with info that (hopefully) will promote behaviors more likely to reap positive outcomes.
February 7 2007, 23:29:50 UTC 5 years ago
August 3 2005, 18:38:02 UTC 6 years ago
i'm interested in reading the book now...but i gotta wait till august 19th when summer class ends.
August 3 2005, 19:16:39 UTC 6 years ago
Orange and Lemon are also real first names—839 and 949 listings on the SSDI, respectively. And there were even 9 people named Jello listed.
Other fruity names:
Plum - 56
Apricot - 1
Apple - 18
Mango - 14
Tomato - 2
Melon - 16
But no evidence of Orangejello or Lemonjello, despite numerous FOAF stories similar to your own. I guess we'll have to wait until they volunteer themselves—or die and show up in the death index.
August 3 2005, 20:10:06 UTC 6 years ago
August 3 2005, 23:29:21 UTC 6 years ago
That's really funny!
Though I have met people named Apple, I've never even heard of any of the other ones, especially "Plum"!
(Okay, we've all heard of people named "Cherry," but I don't think stage names count...)
August 4 2005, 14:01:56 UTC 6 years ago
Peach - 39
Peaches - 32
Cherry - 1305
Raisin - 2
Banana - 6
Nectarine - 1
Squash - 1
Of course, these are not necessarily their birth names—just what was on record with the social security administration when they died. Still, too funny.
Not fruit-related, but sort of sad: 11 people named Unique on record, the earliest born 1980. A lot of Uniques that didn't make it to see the age of 18.
August 3 2005, 20:23:23 UTC 6 years ago
August 9 2005, 20:28:26 UTC 6 years ago
Sweet hard-working polite young men, they are.
August 9 2005, 20:56:42 UTC 6 years ago