Wilson has written essays and articles examining a wide range of topics related to popular culture, from video games and mass-market fiction novels to modern poetry and classic literature. In this essay, he argues that the authors of Freakonomics make a number of missteps in the book that ultimately damage the credibility of their work.

In the book Freakonomics, economist Steven D. Levitt and journalist Stephen J. Dubner present surprising and enlightening examples of how economics can be used to describe why people do the things they do. But for all of the authors' clever use of data and scientific methods to reach conclusions both entertaining and accessible to the layperson, they frequently make missteps that undermine the scientific premises on which the whole enterprise is based.

It must be tough to write a mainstream book that attempts to distill insights gained from mountains of complex research...