"Ridding urban streets of the scourge of dog feces may be an admirable goal, but the two men also have loftier aspirations."

Freakonomics authors Stephen J Dubner and Steven D Levitt reveal some of the 'magic' of their problem-solving techniques in new book

'Think Like A Freak' explains how the average non-economist might approach problems and is full of common-sense instructions

TIM WALKER – PUBLISHED 24 MAY 2014 

Ridding urban streets of the scourge of dog faeces may be an admirable goal, but the two men also have loftier aspirations. Before writing Think Like A Freak, Levitt co-founded a group of big thinkers called The Greatest Good, with a view to tackling major global problems such as obesity, addiction and access to clean toilets in the developing world.

"The idea was to come up with a list of the 50 biggest problems that we might actually be able to solve," he explains. "Many billionaire philanthropists are bullied by society or by other billionaire philanthropists into saying they'll give away a large chunk of their money, but they don't have a vision. We thought this white paper would be something we could put in front of them and say, 'Here's 50 solvable problems', and they could choose which ones to work on."