As it happens, Freakonomics is being taken-on by Andrew Gelman and Kaiser Fung in this new post.

Oh, I just realized: this is a great way to teach students about scientific communication (and, perhaps, even touches on ideas related to the public understanding of science, only science means economics here [peppered with a good bit of sociology for garnish]).

And, there are even some cool pics to help visualize the “problem” as it were.

Here is the way that it goes (especially in SuperFreakonomics):

Here is how it might work better: