Unweaving the Rainbow: Science, Delusion and the Appetite for Wonder
Did Newton unweave the rainbow by reducing it to its prismatic colors, as Keats contended Did he, in other words, diminish beauty Far from it, says acclaimed scientist Richard Dawkins Newton s unweaving is the key to much of modern astronomy and to the breathtaking poetry of modern cosmology M
Truth or Truthiness: Distinguishing Fact from Fiction by Learning to Think Like a Data Scientist
Teacher tenure is a problem Teacher tenure is a solution Fracking is safe Fracking causes earthquakes Our kids are over tested Our kids are not tested enough We read claims like these in the newspaper every day, often with no justification other than it feels right How can we figure out wha
The Seven Pillars of Statistical Wisdom
What gives statistics its unity as a science Stephen Stigler sets forth the seven foundational ideas of statistics a scientific discipline related to but distinct from mathematics and computer science n nEven the most basic idea aggregation, exemplified by averaging is counterintuitive It allows on
Know Your Chances: Understanding Health Statistics
Every day we are bombarded by television ads, public service announcements, and media reports warning of dire risks to our health and offering solutions to help us lower those risks But many of these messages are incomplete, misleading, or exaggerated, leaving the average person misinformed and con
Naked Statistics: Stripping the Dread from the Data
Once considered tedious, the field of statistics is rapidly evolving into a discipline Hal Varian, chief economist at Google, has actually called sexy From batting averages and political polls to game shows and medical research, the real world application of statistics continues to grow by leaps
Chances Are . . .: Adventures in Probability
A layman s journey into the realm of probability from poker to politics, weather to war, Monte Carlo to mortality We search for certainty, but find only likelihood All things are possible, only one thing actually happens everything else is in the realm of probability The twin disciplines of prob
The Numbers Game: The Commonsense Guide to Understanding Numbers in the News, in Politics, and in Life
The Strunk White of statistics team up to help the average person navigate the numbers in the news Drawing on their hugely popular BBC Radio 4 show More or Less,, journalist Michael Blastland and internationally known economist Andrew Dilnot delight, amuse, and convert American mathphobes by show
A Field Guide to Lies: Critical Thinking in the Information Age
From The New York Times bestselling author of THE ORGANIZED MIND and THIS IS YOUR BRAIN ON MUSIC, a primer to the critical thinking that is necessary now than ever We are bombarded with information each day than our brains can process especially in election season It s raining bad data,
Weapons of Math Destruction: How Big Data Increases Inequality and Threatens Democracy
A former Wall Street quant sounds an alarm on mathematical modeling a pervasive new force in society that threatens to undermine democracy and widen inequality We live in the age of the algorithm Increasingly, the decisions that affect our lives where we go to school, whether we get a car loan,
Misused Statistics (Popular Statistics) (Popular Statistics)
Revised and updated edition of a standard in the field Alerts readers to the problems, inherent in statistical practice illustrating the types of misused statistics with well documented, real world examples, nearly half new to this edition, drawn from a wide range of areas, including the media, pu
Stat-Spotting: A Field Guide to Identifying Dubious Data
Are four million women really battered to death by their husbands or boyfriends each year Does a young person commit suicide every thirteen minutes in the United States Is methamphetamine our number one drug problem today Alarming statistics bombard our daily lives, appearing in the news, on the
Flaws and Fallacies in Statistical Thinking
This book was written with a dual purpose first, the author was motivated to relieve his distress over the faulty conclusions drawn from the frequent misuse of relatively simple statistical tools such as percents, graphs, and averages Second, his objective was to create a nontechnical book that wo
Calculated Risks: How to Know When Numbers Deceive You
At the beginning of the twentieth century, H G Wells predicted that statistical thinking would be as necessary for citizenship in a technological world as the ability to read and write But in the twenty first century, we are often overwhelmed by a baffling array of percentages and probabilities a
Damned Lies and Statistics: Untangling Numbers from the Media, Politicians, and Activists
Does the number of children gunned down double each year Does anorexia kill 150,000 young women annually Do white males account for only a sixth of new workers Startling statistics shape our thinking about social issues But all too often, these numbers are wrong This book is a lively guide to s