What the Numbers Say
A Field Guide to Mastering Our Numerical World
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- $15.99
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- $15.99
Publisher Description
A decade ago, computer scientist Douglas Hofstadter coined the term innumeracy, which aptly described the widespread ailment of poor quantitative thinking in American society. So, in What the Numbers Say, Derrick Niederman and David Boyum present clear and comprehensible methods to help us process and calculate our way through the world of “data smog” that we live in. Avoiding abstruse formulations and equations, Niederman and Boyum anchor their presentations in the real world by covering a particular quantitative idea in relation to a context–like probability in the stock market or interest-rate percentages. And while this information is useful toward helping us to be more financially adept, What the Numbers Say is not merely about money. We learn why there were such dramatic polling swings in the 2000 U.S. presidential election and why the system of scoring for women’s figure skating was so controversial in the 2002 Winter Olympics, showing us that good quantitative thinking skills are not only practical but fun.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
The bad news is that, in an age of science, complex financial planning, and competing deficit forecasts to support competing stimulus packages, the average citizen needs math more than ever. The good news, according to this delightful and eye-opening numeracy primer, is that it's all sixth-grade math. Niederman, a mathematics Ph.D, and author of The Inner Game of Investing, and Boyum, a public policy consultant, assert that quantitative competence is mostly a matter of simple habits of mind, including: trust numerical data over anecdotal observations, but always question what the data are really saying; think in terms of probabilities rather than certainties; and make rough-and-ready estimates so your calculations don't go off track. With such rules of thumb and a little arithmetic, the authors illuminate basic ideas about probability, statistics and measuring and comparing numbers. Their lucid, light-handed, equation-free style is based on a skeptical examination of the dogmas of our modern culture of quantity, in which they take a close look at such numerical sacred cows as the batting average, the body-mass index and the wind-chill factor; clarify the math behind public policy nostrums like Social Security privatization and the flat tax; and reveal what they see as the statistical distortions of The Bible Code and the reasons for taking Zagat scores with a few grains of salt. They conclude with some recommendations on instilling quantitative common sense in students (restricting calculators in the classroom is job one). This engaging book is a great challenge to fuzzy math of all stripes.
