Randomistas
How Radical Researchers Changed Our World
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5.0 • 2 Ratings
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- $12.99
Publisher Description
Randomised tests are carried out on us every day: by supermarkets, search engines, online dating sites, political parties and direct marketers. But how do these tests work? Are there any ethical issues? And what do they reveal about our choices?
In Randomistas, Andrew Leigh tells the stories of radical researchers who overturned conventional wisdom in medicine, politics, business, law enforcement and more. From finding the cure to scurvy to discovering what policies really improve literacy rates, randomistas have shaped life as we know it – but they often had to fight to conduct their trials and have their findings implemented.
“The subject of this book could hardly be more vital: are we humble enough to admit we may be wrong, and do we care enough to learn? Randomistas is rigorous, impassioned and tremendous fun. Everyone should read it."
– Tim Harford, author of The Undercover Economist
‘A tour de force” – David Halpern,, author of Inside the Nudge Unit
‘Reveals how data and experiments can make the world a better place’ – Dean Karlan, professor of economics at Yale
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Leigh (The Luck of Politics), an Australian MP, covers the important and contested subject of randomized trials and how they affect the world in this encompassing account. He provides readers with an intelligible guide to this scientific technique from the mid-18th century, when trials were conducted seeking a cure to scurvy, to the present variety of trials taking place across industries and disciplines. Randomized trials have been used to test the effectiveness both of tiny changes the U.K. government's "Nudge Unit" discovered car tax collection letters became 9% more effective "if they included a photograph of the offending vehicle" and of high-stakes processes a 2013 trial found a very common kind of knee surgery no more effective than simply telling patients they had undergone the operation. Leigh finds that randomized trials have challenged assumptions in many fields, from social welfare policy to retail marketing strategies. And though many people presume that randomized trials are impractically costly and time-consuming , Leigh shows how today's researchers are demonstrating that "randomised experiments can be done quickly, simply, and cheaply." Even a general audience can appreciate this well-rounded and intriguing overview of a surprisingly far-reaching topic.
