Innumeracy: Mathematical Illiteracy and Its Consequences 1st Edition

Some good nuggets, but not a polished piece

Comment

gergelyk

December 5, 2013

Format: PaperbackVerified Purchase

I bought this book after it was referenced in the very well-written The Panic Virus (Seth Mnookin), which I'd highly recommend. I was curious about a professional's take on math skills in the general population. There's plenty of good insight and information, but it's like the author couldn't make up his mind if he wanted to rant or educate. He covers a number of numerical fallacies and adds explanations, but often it feels like the explanation would come up short to anyone who really didn't understand the particular issue being covered. I'm quite good with math myself so it was easy for me to follow everything, but parts of the book came off more as a "we smart people get why that's so dumb". I think the book could be improved by either tightening it up and focusing on a more advanced reader group or by really fleshing out the explanations to try and really help readers who are not good at math and actually suffer from the innumeracy/ies he describes. He could probably have done both even, if he set up chapters with a high-level concept, issue and effects section, then an educational/explanation section that the advanced reader could easily skip over.

Lots of good, but could really use a revision or two.

4 people found this helpful

Even a highschooler can like this book

Comment

Always Shopping

April 12, 2012

Format: PaperbackVerified Purchase

Innumeracy opens your mind and makes you question things you have heard on television and the news. John Allen Paulos, who is fantastically witty, explains complex and simple misconceptions in a manner that almost anyone can understand. Paulos writes takes you back into history with Julius Caesar and brings you back to the present with baseball figures and common mistakes in statistics. It opens your mind to just what exactly numbers can do and how they revolve around almost every aspect in our lives. Innumeracy makes you look at yourself and others around you and see how understanding numbers can help you improve in numerous ways. Paulos applies mathematics to almost every aspect in life. If you believe you are "not a math person," then this is the book for you. Using real life examples, Paulos makes you understand why math and numbers are so important. Innumeracy shows how celebrities, presidents, and major politicians use numbers in the wrong way. It is amazing what you will find out in this information-packed book. From statistics to probability to the multiplication principle, this book has it all and is written in such a way that makes even the most boring subject interesting to any reader. Witty and to-the-point, Paulos writes a book that could change the way people think for the better and most likely improve our society as a whole. If everyone read this book, it is amazing what the results would be. He takes the most relevant and sometimes controversial subjects and applies them to math while pointing out how some things are not correct at all. You will soon find yourself thinking twice about saying, "I am not a math person" or "Math just isn't my subject."

2 people found this helpful

Beyond HOW TO LIE WITH STATISTICS

Comment

October 27, 2017

Format: PaperbackVerified Purchase

This is the book for people who want to go one step beyond HOW TO LIE WITH STATISTICS. So many of us are bewitched by sloppy statistics, by flawed procedurals that wind up in the mass media and other lies, some benign, some not, that author Paulos felt this book was necessary. He went on to write a couple more according to the same themes.

Excellent writer and thinker

Comment

emrm

April 4, 2014

Format: Kindle EditionVerified Purchase

Loved his writing style. Breezy and entertaining, though all about a dreaded subject (for me)... math! I have been an innumerate, but this book sparked a lot of thought and I also understood most of the 'mathy' stuff he broke down. Though the book is not at all technical and, in fact, mostly is common sense. (Though there are areas where we need to use numbers to break things down- since not everything is common sense and we humans do sometimes get things mixed up-- in the areas of statistics and probability, especially.) I would read other books written by John Allen Paulos.

One person found this helpful

Good book for folks with brains

Comment

Josh Olson

January 30, 2011

Format: PaperbackVerified Purchase

Generally I found Innumeracy to be a good book. It does a good job pointing out common errors people make with numbers, probability and basic logic. He uses familiar and perhaps useful examples to make his points. Examples include the likelihood of how one would die, gambling related probabilities, baseball batting averages, DNA evidence and much more. He also delves into pseudoscience like astrology.

Certain parts of the book require basic math knowledge (exponents, division, percents, etc). Paulos does his best to dumb down the math and he does so effectively but unfortunately I fear there is a decent swath of people that should be reading this book that probably could not comprehend parts of it. Thankfully those parts are not too frequent.

2 people found this helpful

The description is a bit different

Comment

Most recent customer reviews

Kathy sackett

Product and picture description is a bit different

Published 4 months ago

Kimberly Fultonon

Overall a good overview of the facade of pseudo-science

Innumeracy describes the various fallacies in statistics and gives countless real-world examples as well.Read more

Published 5 months ago

Michael

Read it and Think about your level of Mathematical understanding

This book deals with an important subject that needs much more attention, the lack of mathematical understanding by most people.Read more

Published 6 months ago

JMG

Excellent.

Use this to help Statistics students get a solid, intuitive understanding of the subject. Excellent.

Published 6 months ago

Amazon Customer

It's good.

I've read a number of skeptic books. This one doesn't break any new ground but it's a good addition to a skeptic library.

Published 8 months ago

L Michael Szendrey

persistence id required iin certain chapters.. It worthwhile ...

persistence id required iin certain chapters.. It worthwhile reading but I fear the book could not be understood by an inumerate person.

You owe it to yourself to have this book.

Spectre007

Awesome book. An absolute classic.

Really great book - everyone should read.

WEF

Five Stars

I hate math and this didn't change my mind.

Amazon Customer

One Star

A great book for those with sharply mathematical minds

Tom the Tinker

This is an informative book. It is well-written and interesting, but will appeal to the mathematically inclined most.Read more