Innumeracy: Mathematical Illiteracy and Its Consequences | John Allen Paulos

Innumeracy: Mathematical Illiteracy and Its Consequences | John Allen Paulos | All statistics are hearsay, but some are reliable hearsay.

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Innumeracy: Mathem...

	Innumeracy: Mathematical Illiteracy and Its Consequences John Allen Paulos Hill and Wang, 2001 - 208 pages average customer review:based on 78 reviews view larger image
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highly recommended

If Only Everyone Would Know This Stuff...

This is a great book. Quick read. Funny at times. Interesting in all cases. Personally, I always considered myself much more comfortable with numbers than most people, while at the same time understanding that I still only understood a very small part of mathematical knowledge available. Reading this book, I realized that although I didn't fall into all the math-traps other people seem to fall into, I still were way off when it came to understanding certain every day numbers.

I would recommend this book to anyone. It is not hard to read as one would expect a math book to be.

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All statistics are hearsay, but some are reliable hearsay.

An excellent reference on statistics is a book by John Allen Paulos entitled "Innumeracy" about "mathematical illiteracy" and its consequences. Like Strunk and White's "The Elements of Style," Paulos's "Innumeracy" should be on the bookshelf of every publisher. And since the Web enables all of us to be publishers, perhaps those two books should be read by everybody! Well, one step at a time.

A must read for the numerate and innumerate alike

This book offers valuable common sense advice that can be used in a broad array of every day situations. The narrative is very readable and easily accessible to all, only requiring an occasional minimum of mathematical reasoning.

For those who are already familiar with the concepts, it is a refreshing summary of the pitfalls of the innumerate. And for those of you who have always considered mathematics to be 'one of your worst subjects', then this book may very well give you a new perpective and teach you something to boot.

I found it to be refreshing and entertaining read and recommend it to all.

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Many good points

Paulos makes many good points about mathematics and innumeracy in our country. The anecdotes and story problems are interesting and thought provoking. He places an emphasis on improving statistical education - a recent addition to most curricula at best. I have enjoyed reading this book several times and think it is a helpful addition to my library. I also think most of the book is accessible to the general public, but he does warn that some parts are more mathematically intense than others.

innumeracy

John Allen Paulos's book Innumeracy turned out to be a lot more interesting than I had expected. The issues he speaks of are still relevant today. His reasons for writing this book were obvious. He seems to be fed up with all of the mathematical illiteracy in our world. Throughout the book he gives several examples of common consequences of this innumeracy.
Paulos begins with a simple explanation of some cases in which we are innumerate. He states that most of the time it is very simple math that people make mistakes on. He then moves on to probability and coincidence. He speaks of a coin toss game, and chance encounters. When reading his work it seems very obvious that there is nothing that happens by chance. When he works out the math for estimating how many people in a given room are Capricorns, it really makes you think about how silly you are for getting excited about such a coincidence. Several other examples of coincidence were mentioned in this chapter that we never think twice about. Paulos then turns his attention to pseudoscience. He really seems to be annoyed by this subject. He mentions several different types of the pseudoscience like, astrology, healers, predictive dreams, ect.. My favorite part was when he explains predictive dreams. We never really think about how high the chances are that we will have such a dream simply because we like to think that there is some mysterious power we have. Reading this book has definitely brought me back down to earth and made me a little more conscious of just believing any statistic that I hear, or believing in a healer or psychic. In this section he also talks about the scams in blackjack, false positives in medical diagnosis, and UFO's. The rest of the book is about all of the rest of his observations of how much innumeracy is in our society. Everyday we see demonstrations of what Paulos is saying, but we never really think about how to prove statistics, or coincidences.
Overall Paulos's premises are true. He makes very valid points about how completely innumerate the majority of our world is. However, he seems a little pessimistic at times. Surely some of his claims are a little far fetched, but that is expected from someone who knows numbers as well as he does.
Paulos expresses his arguments clearly and proves that what he is saying is true with the mathematical equations to back it up. His claims are consistent, and the argument was complete. Every bit of the book had relevant evidence taken into account.
The only problem with the book is that is was not totally fair. He really did not give too much credit to the opposing views and arguments. The argument at times was a little far fetched. He suggests that most people don't understand mathematics, or how to feel about statistics. He thinks that the majority of people just believe statistics to be the absolute truth. He underestimates the intelligence in the world a lot throughout his book.
Again I think that this book was very well written. The layperson can get some enjoyment out of it, and it is a quick read. I would recommend the book to someone who as an open mind, and wants to know more about statistics, probability, and why our world is set up for innumerate people.

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