skeptical of the conventional wisdom; you may begin looking for hints as to how things arent quite what they seem; per- FREAK ONOMIC S   haps you will seek out some trove of data and sift through it, balanc- ing your intelligence and your intuition to arrive at a glimmering new idea. Some of these ideas might make you uncomfortable, even un- popular. To claim that legalized abortion resulted in a massive drop in crime will inevitably lead to explosive moral reactions. But the fact of the matter is that Freakonomics-style thinking simply doesnt traffic in morality. As we suggested near the beginning of this book, if moral- ity represents an ideal world, then economics represents the actual world. The most likely result of having read this book is a simple one: you may find yourself asking a lot of questions. Many of them will lead to nothing. But some will produce answers that are interest- ing, even surprising. Consider the question posed at the beginning of this books penultimate chapter: how much do parents really matter? The data have by now made it clear that parents matter a great deal in some regards (most of which have been long determined by the time a child is born) and not at all in others (the ones we obsess about). You cant blame parents for trying to do something-any- thing-to help their child succeed, even if its something as irrelevant as giving him a high-end first name. But there is also a huge random effect that rains down on even the best parenting efforts. If you are in any way typical, you have known some intelligent and devoted parents whose child went badly off the rails. You may have also known of the opposite instance, where a child succeeds despite his parents worst intentions and habits. Recall for a moment the two boys, one white and one black, who were described in chapter 5. The white boy who grew up out- side Chicago had smart, solid, encouraging, loving parents who