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31 of 33 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
Ok, but there are many better books on the subject, April 2, 2009
This review is from: The Numbers Game: The Commonsense Guide to Understanding Numbers in the News, in Politics, and in Life (Hardcover)
As a Statistics teacher, I jump when I see that a new book on this subject has come out. The study of how numbers are understood and misunderstood by the public can be very fascinating indeed. Unfortunately, this book ranks slightly below average in a crowded field. Here's why:
1) The book doesn't offer a whole lot of innovative thinking on the subject. Some examples and phraseology were new, and I especially enjoyed the chapter called "The Whole Elephant" (on the foolishness of quantitative goal setting by heads of companies), but much has been rehashed in other books in some form or another.
2) I wasn't entertained. The book lacked humor, and while not what I would outright call dry, it didn't exactly come alive either.
3) Most examples were from studies related to Great Britain. This may or may not bother some people.
On the flip side, it is a very quick read, with independent chapters that can be read in 10-15 minute bites. Not a bad bathroom book, I suppose.
Better books on the subject, or related subjects: The Drunkard's Walk, Innumeracy, Damned Lies and Statistics, 200% of Nothing, Predictably Irrational, Chances Are
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18 of 20 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Commonsense and Numbers, January 23, 2009
This review is from: The Numbers Game: The Commonsense Guide to Understanding Numbers in the News, in Politics, and in Life (Hardcover)
There are several books in publication today that strive to guide the general reader through mazes of number-based information; their main purpose is to impart to the general public the ability to ask the right questions and make sense of the information being presented. Some of these books are quite enjoyable while others can be a bit dry. I would place this one in the former category. Having said that, it should be pointed out that the specific topics that are discussed vary greatly throughout the book; as a result, a given reader may find some chapters much more interesting than others. This was certainly true in my case; for example, I found the chapter on risk to be particularly fascinating. The writing style is clear, friendly, authoritative, accessible and engaging. While math/statistics buffs may be the ones to be most attracted to this book, it should be noted that it can be enjoyed by everyone, i.e., the authors' target audience.
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1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Superb book on what Numbers really mean...definitely a steal at this low price too!, February 6, 2010
This book is fantastic; Michael Blastland and Andrew Dilnot have really captured the essence of what Numbers are all about. Here are three of my favorite quotes from the book:
"Uncertainty is a fact of life. Numbers, often being precise, are sometimes used as if they overcame it. A vital principle to establish is that many numbers will be uncertain, and we should not hold that against them. Even 90 percent accuracy might imply more uncertainty than you would expect. The human lesson here is that since life is not certain, and since we know this from experience, we should not expect numbers to be any different. They can clarify uncertainty, if used carefully, but they cannot beat it."
"Being fallible does not make numbers useless, and the fact that most of the positives are false positives does not mean the test is no good. It has at least narrowed the odds, even if with nothing like 90 percent certainty. Those who are positive are still unlikely to have breast cancer, but they are a little more likely than before they were tested. Those who are negative are now even less likely to have it than before they were tested. So it is not that uncertainty means absolute ignorance, nor that the numbers offer certainty, rather that they can narrow the scope of our ignorance."
"We accuse statisticians of being overly reductive and turning the world into numbers, but statisticians know well enough how approximate and fallible their numbers are. It is the rest of us who perform the worst reductionism whenever we pretend the numbers give us excessive certainty. Any journalist who acts as if the range of uncertainty does not matter, and reports only one number in place of a spread of doubt, conspires in a foolish delusion for which no self-respecting statistician would ever fall."
I hope these quotes connote a general flavor of the skepticism that Blastland and Dilnot are conveying. I found the book terrific and think everyone should read it. I would also recommend reading the books On Being Certain: Believing You Are Right Even When You're Not and Your Brain Is (Almost) Perfect: How We Make Decisions. They fall within this same general category and are equally as good.
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