Why Drug Dealers Still Live with their Moms

Back in 2005, Levitt and Dubner produced one of the most interesting books I have read in a very long time. It is called "Freakonomics". It has a totally cool title. They got Malcolm Gladwell to do the forward, and it even has ingenious artwork on the cover.

The book's premise is this - "If morality represents how people would like the world to work, then economics shows how it actually works."
The "rogue economists" explain that there is a hidden side to everything and that conventional wisdom is often wrong when measured against empirical data. The book explains how we cheat and in doing so relates sumo wrestlers, parents who want their kids in daycare, and school teachers. It made me realize the power of being an expert and how Klu Klux Klan members as a group behave like real estate agents. I have had the book since 2005.

Disturbing was the premise that Clinton did not win the war on crime. The book proposes the Roe v Wade decision, (January 22, 1973) while obliterating millions of innocent lives, was actually the major reason crime rates dropped in the '90's. The authors made valid assumptions about the terminated babies (most likely unwanted and destined to be poor) and the dramatic drop in crime occurred two decades after abortion was legalized, the average age of the criminals committing those crimes at that time. I am oversimplifying the research and I am doing a poor job in my synopsis, but the book is important.

The book was formative in guiding the way I think about churches. If conventional (man's) wisdom is often proven wrong by empirical data, how many methodologies, habits and programs we employ in churches are worthless, ineffective, or even detrimental?
How important than is measurement? How important is follow up?
How important is thinking outside the box? How important is trying to make decisions outside of one's own prejudices?