Freakonomics Radio - 35. Live From St. Paul!

Episode Date: June 22, 2011

Freakonomics Radio hits the road, and plays some Quiz Bowl

From WNYC and APM American Public Media, this is Freakonomics Radio. Here's your host, Stephen Dubner. So a couple weeks ago, we did something we've never done before. We took Freakonomics Radio on the road to the Fitzgerald Theater in St. Paul, Minnesota. And we put on a show in front of actual living people. They seem to like it, but it's a little hard to tell. You know, everybody's so nice in Minnesota to start with. Anyway, my favorite part of the evening was when we gave my Freakonomics co-author Steve Levitt

sort of a homecoming roast. He grew up in Minneapolis, most of his family still lives there, and he went to high school at St. Paul Academy. Now, one more thing you might want to know before listening to this podcast. Levitt's father, Michael, is a medical researcher, one of the world's foremost experts in intestinal gas. So in some circles, he is known as the king of farts. So if you ever wonder where Steve Levitt got off studying sumo wrestlers and black names and the economics of crack cocaine, all you got to do is look up the family tree. All right, then.

Off we go to the stage of the Fitzgerald Theater. So, Levitt, I did have an idea. Since we're here in your hometown, I was wondering if it might be fun to go a little bit of this is your life on you and to go back to some people who knew you then and to talk about what they might have predicted would come of you. Does that interest you at all?

Not really. Does it interest you at all? Well, let's do that then, okay? So we've got a, I mean, it's mob rule. So we've got a, I mean, it's mob rule. So we've got a few guests for you tonight. And our first guest is a longtime teacher and coach at Steve Levitt's high school alma mater, St. Paul Academy. Please would you give a warm Freakonomics welcome to George Leiter. lighter. So George, thank you so much for being here. I am really excited to be here. How excited are you? I can't tell you how excited I am. All right. Scale of one to, you want to even get into

a number or you're good? Hundreds, hundreds of excited. On a scale of one to, you want to even get into a number or you're good? Hundreds, hundreds of excited. On a scale of one to, and you were a math teacher or no? Yes, I am. Yeah. So on a scale of one to 10, we're in the hundreds and we wonder why your calculus score was, all right. George, I wonder if we could start just to jog your memory because we want to know your recollection of Steve as a high school student.

And let's start with a photograph of young Steve Levitt. Now, George, when you see that beautifully hirsute young man, what kind of kid was he? What kind of student was he? Well, I knew him, I think, all six years. He was in the upper school at St. Paul Academy. And I guess curiosity is the word that pops into mind. The story I would tell was when he and his buddy James showed up at my house one summer evening and said, when you come out to the car, we have a question for you.

And I head out to the car, and they open the door, and they pull out two eight-foot marijuana plants that they had found growing behind a local hockey arena. And he said, we can't settle this for us. Is this marijuana or not? And I said, why on God's green earth do you think I'm the person to come to to ask this question? And Steve actually responded, because you went to McAllister, didn't you? And, George, I understand that you knew Levitt not just as a student or his marijuana expeditions, but that he was a Quiz Bowl competitor, correct? And you ran Quiz Bowl? Is that right? I was at that time the coach of Quiz Bowl and went on to actually run the Quiz Bowl organization until I turned it over to a much more capable person just a few years ago.

I see. So there we see Levitt, top row. You were not a big boy, were you? You know, to be truthful, I think I was sitting on a telephone book in that picture. I was quite small. And now how good was Steve at Quiz Bowl? Was he all right? It is. Well, he is sitting in the captain's seat there. And as an eighth grader, I actually remember that match. As an eighth grader, captain of the...

He was good. And actually, the reason he might be good is sitting out in the audience. I have a great memory of Steven in seventh grade. He weighed about 60 pounds. It appeared that he had no red blood cells in his body. He was this pale little kid. And I see him outside and without a sweater on in the cool fall weather. And he's holding this big armload of books. And I said, Steve, are you OK? And he goes, my dad wakes me up at night to ask me about the presidents. So that's how he got, and what level did he, did you win anything?

It is. By the time he was a junior and senior, they twice represented Minnesota at the national tournament, and were fifth. And Quiz Bowl, I tell you, in some parts of the country is extreme. So there are schools that actually have traveling teams. High schools have traveling basketball teams. So to finish fifth, I think from the Northwest, a real surprise to the people down in Dallas. So you were a very good team and he was the captain of the team. So you were something. You were hot stuff. All right. Now, I understand that Steve was not the only Levitt to play quiz bowl, right? Can you tell me who we're looking at right here? Oh, that's the suave and smarter older sister. That's Linda Levitt. She was also the captain of the team, and she has the same father, as it turns out. Interesting, yeah. I don't want

to pry. Same mother, too? Yeah. Right? I thought we uncovered something here that I hadn't known. Okay, yeah. And so Linda Levitt, let me say, is now known as Linda Gines, her married name. And I just want to point out that Linda was responsible for naming Freakonomics, for which we are eternally indebted. Is that the right word? She's still waiting for her check. And best of all, though, I'm happy to say that Linda Levitt-Gines is here tonight. Okay. Also, Dr. Michael Levitt, the king of farts himself, is here tonight. And ladies and gentlemen, please, a warm Freakonomics welcome for Linda Levitt-Gines and Dr. Michael Levitt.

Here they come. How are we doing so far? You guys all right? I'm here for my check. Now, Dr. Levitt, let me ask you, if you had had to predict back then, you're the guy who's waking him up in the middle of the night to drill him on presidents for Quiz Bowl. You're a medical researcher.

You could envision some kind of future, but what did you think your son would turn into? Well, his mother thought he was a genius from the first day he was born, so she would not be one bit surprised with his success. I'm going to have to stay informed and actually tell you the truth about him. I'd call him a sleeper or a slow bloomer. He didn't read a book until he was 12 years old. And I was getting a little bit worried, and I had read the book called,

I can't remember the name of the book, but it was about the hijinks of baseball players. The Bronx Zoo. Oh, the Bronx Zoo, yeah. Yeah, that is the first book I ever read. I gave him that book and said, maybe you'd like to read this book. And that was the first book he ever read. I gave him that book and said, maybe you'd like to read this book. And that was the first book he ever read.

He maybe read two or three more books before he went off to college. You know, I got to say, St. Paul Academy sounds less and less tough the more I hear. And when he went off to Harvard, my mother, who more or less had her nose into everything, said,

since when did Stephen get so smart? So it was a bit of a surprise that he was so successful. One thing I knew, he would not be a physician. He had one of these days off where you go to see what your father is doing. And he came in our laboratory, and we were doing surgery on a rat. And he practically fainted and ran out of the room. and he came in our laboratory, and we were doing surgery on a rat, and he practically fainted and ran out of the room, and so I gathered medicine would not be his future. And I never really would have predicted that we'd be so successful

that we'd all be on the stage at the Fitzgerald Theater tonight. Yeah, that's all right. Very nice. Now, let me ask you this, Linda. As a former Quiz Bowl competitor yourself, I'm just curious to know, you know yourself, you know your brother, you know your dad.

What if, let's pretend that we could assemble the three of you as a Quiz Bowl team right now, Team Levitt, right? And let's pretend that we could assemble the three of you as a quiz bowl team right now team levitt right and let's pretend that we could have you face off against like the current st paul academy quiz bowl team i guess there is one right i um we can't make that happen obviously but but if um if we could how would team levitt do? I don't think we could beat anybody except the current cast of the Bad Girls Club. We're not. We've forgotten everything we knew. Yeah.

Well, I'm going to tell you, I did just tell my first lie of tonight. We actually have the current St. Paul Academy. Let's give it a shot. You want to play? You guys want to play? All right, let's give a warm Freakonomics welcome to the St. Paul Academy Quiz Bowl team, the Spartans. Ladies and gentlemen.

All righty. So first, the combatants will, in Quiz Bowl style, introduce themselves in a few moments. But first of all, I'd just like to thank George, George Leiter, for putting this together and St. Paul Academy for putting this together. And George has actually gone above and beyond the call of duty in putting together the Quiz Bowl competition

by actually compiling questions that fit the theme of our five Freakonomics radio hours. So prediction and suicide and cyanology and all that. And I also just want to announce there will be a cash prize to the winning team. All right. So with that in mind, George Leiter, let's have some quiz bowl. Thanks. All right. And sadly, this is a dream of mine. All right. Are you ready for some academic action? Well, you're in luck. You're about to see the St. Paul Academy Spartans square off against the Levitt clan. Who will survive and what will be left of them? Let's find out. We're going to kick things off with a series of a rapid round toss-up questions worth 10 points each. So teams, hands on buzzers, here's that first question. In a chapter entitled June 2nd, 1910, a Harvard student commits suicide. The

narrator is Quentin Compson, who also appears as a character in Absalom, Absalom. Name this classic in American literature penned by William Faulkner. And that is? That's me. The Crucible? No, can you take it over here? As I Lay Dying. That's The Sound and the Fury. So let me grab the easier questions for the teams. This term for this practice originated in the Middle Ages. easier questions for the teams.

This term for this practice originated in the Middle Ages. It became such an issue that Pope Innocent XII issued a papal bull limiting its practice. Ambrose Bierce defined it as appointing your grandmother for the good of the party. It was certainly in the headlines in the 1960s when JFK appointed his brother

as Attorney General. And that is Wendeborn. The nepotism? Nepotism is the word for ten points, and we're on the board. Now, sisters and brothers don't always get along so well. While being chased by her father, this granddaughter of Helios hacked up her brother Absurdist, thinking... And that is Wendeborn.

Medea? Medea is correct. Thought Dad would have to slow down to pick up the boy's body parts. That's right. Let's try this one. It is reported that this line came from Pierce Tower at some point

in the 1990s. It was printed on t-shirts by Tufts House and was quite a money maker. What is the line that has become perhaps the most famous of the offbeat quotes about the University of Chicago? That's Wenneborn. Where fun goes to die. Where fun goes to die.

Incidentally, Steve will be attending the University of Chicago next fall. All right, let's take a break after that exciting first period of play. We have 20 points. The Levitt's still waiting to get on the board. Coming up, we'll meet the St. Paul Academy team and see if Team Levitt can come up with any more Faulkner novels written by Arthur Miller. From WNYC and APM, American Public Media, this is Freakonomics Radio.

Here we go with some more Quiz Bowl excitement. Your Master of Ceremonies, George Leiter. Let's take a second to meet the competitors in tonight's contest. Let's begin by meeting the St. Paul Academy Spartans. I'm Stephen Wendelborn. I am a senior at St. Paul Academy. I will be attending the Play for Fun Go-To-Dialy University of Chicago. And my goal in life is to finally catch them all. Hello, my name is Zach Mooring.

I'm also a senior at St. Paul Academy. I will be attending Yale University in the fall, and incidentally, I reached my romantic peak in seventh grade when I had two girlfriends at the same time, which was kind of tragic. And last night I had my romantic valley when I went to prom with my friend Carter here. I'm Carter Peterson. I'm also a senior at this school. I will be going to Madison next year.

And I like to think of myself as a mythical sea creature. I have the head of a shark, and I'm doesn't afraid of anything. My name is Cameron Maddox, and I'm also a senior at St. Paul Academy. And I actually just recently signed on to a contract as the spokesperson of Bowflex, so I will not be attending college next year. All right, and I think we've actually met the Levitt family, so to make full use of the time, let's hop back into toss-ups. But now when the team answers a toss-up,

they'll get a chance to answer a multiple-part bonus question that they'll be able to discuss. I'll be looking for my answers from the captains. That's Stephen and Dr. Levitt, the king of fart, bad Dr. Levitt. Okay. So here we go. Here is that toss up. Not every quitter never wins. This coach has had 13 different head coaching jobs in his long career, three colleges and 10 NBA teams. He coached at UCLA and Kansas with a stint at the New Jersey Nets in between. His last gig was with the Charlotte Bobcats, though he quit that one too. Name this veteran coach, perhaps best known for his six

season run with the Philadelphia 76ers. And that's Zach. Brown. That is Larry Brown. That's right. So the students are going to get a crack at a bonus. And it is, what do you know about one of the most important books of the last 50 years? So in Chapter 1 of Freakonomics, Dr. Levitt explores cheating by Chicago school teachers and what type of elite athlete. Oh, was it the... The fencers, right? Yeah, I think they're elite.

Or the sumo wrestlers, maybe? Yes. Okay, we're going to go with sumo wrestlers. That is correct. Here's your second one. Dr. Levitt took an observation a step further, researching the dangers of childhood. According to this research, a child is 100 times more likely to die in one of these than playing with a gun. Is that a swimming pool?

Swimming pool. It's a swimming pool. That is a swimming pool. And in Freakonomics, we learn about the financial structure of drug gangs with the leaders prospering from the work of a large number of very low-income workers. To which major corporation did Levitt compare these drug gangs? Wasn't it like insurance or something? AIG. And your answer, Captain? A-I-G. That's McDonald's, but we give you ten points on the bonus. All right, let's try this one for ten. Marvel Comics fans will know that Jean Grey is one.

There's also one in Stephen King's novel, The Dead Zone, possibly based on the real-life Peter Herkos. You might have caught one on TV. Maybe it's Sylvia Brown on Montel, John Edwards on his syndicated show Crossing Over, or on those infomercials of the faux Jamaican Miss Cleo. What word, besides inaccurate, describes them all? Psychic. Psychic is right, so that's 10 for the Levitts. They're on the board. All right, and speaking of quitting, sometimes quitting seems like a good idea, but it doesn't always turn out that way.

Answer the following about famous quitters. First, Richard Nixon might be at the top of the all-time list of quitters after he resigned from the presidency. In what year did he do so? 1973. 1974. Let's try this one. This actress gave up her role as the snooty barmaid Diane Chambers on the hit series Cheers to pursue a none-too-successful film career. Name her.

Shelley Long. Shelley Long. Your sister does watch a lot of TV. Okay. Let's try this one. In 1998, Jerry Halliwell split from her musical group at least until a recent reunion tour. By what stage name is Mrs. Halliwell known?

Okay, not scary spice, not baby spice, not 40 spice. What's that? All right. Maybe, Dr. Leavitt, you know the name of this spice girl. We'll need an answer. What have you got? Ginger! Yes!

Okay. Ginger! Yes! Okay. Ginger! Security! Okay. All right, apparently the audience is giving you five pity points there. Now let's go to this one. Some say it got its start in an email carrying the I love you virus. Even so, it is more famously associated with Strong Bad, whose protege The Cheat wrote a song about it,

Everybody to the Limit, which was featured in the game Dance and Bubs. What's the word? And that is... Fahoguagwads? It is Fahoguagwads. I'll throw in an extra five if anyone there can spell it. F-H-Q-W-Y-G-A-D-S. No Y in there, but we'll still give you the 10. And here is your bonus

question. After his freshman year at Harvard, Steve Levitt talked several friends and relatives into investing in the Canterbury Downs Investment Syndicate, where, honest to God, they gave him money and he went to the track and bet on the horses for them. This would have worked out great. They would have made big money, except the horses he picked did not win. But let's see what you know about the ponies here. First, what is the name of the racetrack at which the Kentucky Derby is run? Churchill Downs, right? Yeah. Churchill Downs. That's right. What is the word used to describe the type of racetrack betting in which all the bets are pooled, the taxes and fees are removed, and the remainder is distributed among the winners?

Anybody? The good kind. Do you have an answer? It's parimutuel. It's good you don't know that, actually. And racetracks are often measured in a unit of length equal to one-eighth of a mile. What is that called? Furlong.

Furlong. Okay, Furlong. Furlong is right, so you've got ten points there. Let's go with this one. Odysseus, perhaps upset that some of his men had been roasted and eaten, kills the Cyclops responsible. Name this man munching one-eyed son of Poseidon. And that's Steve. Polyphemus. It is Polyphemus. Very nicely done. And here is your bonus.

Okay, the Levitts are getting ready to make their move. All right. Well, as a tribute to Dr. Levitt on stage here, we'll see what you know, because he knows a lot about your innards. Let's see what you know about your innards. See how you fare on this question about the human body. What five-letter word means involving or in the region of the kidney? Renal. Uric. Arena.

Renal. I like renal. I think renal. Renal. Uric. I like uric. That's four letters. We're going to go with renal.

Renal is correct. Good for five. The far-flung aisles of Langerhand are found in which gland? The one that's like a little hat on top of the kidney. The adrenal cortex. Go for it. Adrenal cortex? That's the pancreas. And the three small bones in the human air are the incus, the malleus, and the stapes.

By what more common names are they known? Let's see. We got the stirrup. We got the anvil and the hammer, right? Stirrup, anvil, hammer. That is good for five. All right. And let's go to another toss-up here.

Careers were ruined, most notably that of the Today Show regular and Columbia professor Charles Van Doren. Scandals involving quiz shows like 21, the $64,000 question, and Dotto caused public uproar and a nosedive in game show ratings. The networks reacted by curbing big payoffs. In fact, they were not allowed a million dollar prize until 1999.

Which show made... And that is player... Who Wants to Be a Millionaire? Who Wants to Be a Million? Who wants to be a millionaire. That's correct. All right. And we have one bonus left for you, and it is this. Check out your knowledge of world capitals. Depending on whether you want to count Vatican City,

there are four or five European capitals that begin with the letter V. So you'll get five points each for naming each of the other four. V? V. So you'll get five points each for naming each of the other four. V? V. Vienna? Vienna. Vienna's the capital? I don't know. No. I don't think so. No. What else is there? Vostok's not the capital of anything. All right, I think we'll call time. Just to make you feel bad, let's see if the Spartans know him. Can you name the other three? I got Vaduz.

Vaduz is Liechtenstein. Vilnius. Vilnius, Lithuania, and? Washington, D.C. No one ever gets the capital of Malta. Valletta and Malta. All right. So we're done with the toss-ups, and now we've run out of time, too.

So I'm going to thank you for participating. SPA squeaks by the Levitt clan by just a hair. And let's turn it back over to Stephen Duff. I got to tell you, I feel I oversold the Levitt genius a little bit now. You guys were good, but holy cow. So congratulations. Come on out and another hand for our St. Paul Academy Spartans. Thank you so much. Great job. Great job.

There they are. Washington, D.C. was a great job. So congratulations. It was a really great performance. I mentioned there's a cash prize. And obviously, you guys read Freakonomics. I don't know if you read Super Freak. So, in Super Freak, there was a chapter on altruism. And we explored whether, you know, how you know when altruism is real and how do you know whether it's sometimes just the product of scrutiny. You do nice things because you know that you're being watched. So I'm going to give you some money, but it comes with a little bit of a catch. And I've got two choices for you, okay? So here are the choices. Choice A is this

big red envelope full of $250 cash that you can donate to St. Paul Academy or to a charity of your choice, you guys collectively, okay? And choice B is I've got four individual envelopes with each of your names on it, and they've each got $50 cash in them. So you can each have $50 cash that you can put in your pocket right now and go buy some marijuana and show it to George here. Or you can collectively give $250 in the name of the St. Paul Academy Spartan Fighting Spartan Quiz Bowl champions to the charity of choice.

So you put your heads together. There's no right answer. All right? Who do you want to be? Does the captain need to speak? It's a voter. Our senior class gift was kind of a fall through this year,

but we would like to donate the money to SPA, so long as we can say it is from the SPA Quiz Bowl team. Okay. Isn't that nice? Isn't that nice? Isn't that altruistic? So, George, I'm going to give you the money, just not that I don't trust them.

But I will tell you, it was really just an experiment. We were just goofing with you. So you guys actually get the cash as well. So Cameron, that's you, right? Cameron and Zach, if you did it the other way, I would have kept the $250. That's what I was hoping for. Carter and Stephen, great job. And thank you so much for playing.

And good luck and make Levitt's alma mater proud. I'm sure you will. Thanks so much to the St. Paul Academy Spartans, to George Leiter, to Team Levitt. We'll see you soon, okay? Thank you. Freakonomics Radio is produced by WNYC, APM American Public Media, and Dubner Productions. Our live event in St. Paul, Minnesota was produced by Beret Lamb, Melissa LaCasse, and Ellen Horn. This episode was mixed by David Herman.

If you want more Freakonomics Radio, you can subscribe to our podcast at iTunes or go to Freakonomics.com, where you'll find lots of radio, a blog, the books, and more.