No, the other lines of argument that Levitt makes are quite weak and have been disputed. For example, he claims that European studies show that women who have abortion would make worse mothers than those who don't. The reason he uses European studies is because American studies came to opposite conclusions, and his theory is about American crime rates.

His appeals to Australian and Canadian studies also suffer from the problem that Australians and Canadians aren't Americans (specifically, the racial issues that make up such a large part of the study of crime in America are largely irrelevant there). Furthermore, I've seen a summary of one of the Australian studies, and I'd call it inconclusive, rather than supportive, although that is a grey area judgment.

No, the prestige of his theory has rested mostly on his assertions about what the state-level data showed because it was so much work to try to reproduce it that many felt they had to take his word for it. People were intimidated by that. Now that somebody has tried to reproduce his model, and they've found two important errors, one of which Levitt has so far admitted to.

My position since I debated Levitt in 1999 is that he hasn't met the burden of proof. Large assertions require large evidence, and he hasn't come close. As a Nobel-winning economist told me, Levitt is a master self-promoter.

The cult of personality he has developed around himself might be good for the social sciences in that they attract public attention, but they also diminish critical responses to logic and data. Levitt's oracular approach in Freakonomics induces in the media a hero-worshipping attitude that a Really Smart Young Guy has Figured It All Out, so we shouldn't worry our pretty little heads about it. That's fine for sumo wrestling and other topics Levitt deals with, but for significant public policy issues like abortion and crime, that's a deleterious attitude.