About this product

Product Identifiers

PublisherProfile Books The Limited

ISBN-101788162595

ISBN-139781788162593

eBay Product ID (ePID)4050380958

Product Key Features

Number of Pages256 Pages

Publication NameSomething Doesn't Add Up : Surviving Statistics in a Number-Mad World

LanguageEnglish

Publication Year2021

SubjectGeneral, Applied, Statistics

TypeTextbook

AuthorPaul Goodwin

Subject AreaMathematics, Psychology

FormatUk-B Format Paperback

Dimensions

Item Height0.7 in

Item Weight7.4 Oz

Item Length7.7 in

Item Width5.2 in

Additional Product Features

Intended AudienceTrade

Dewey Edition23

ReviewsPraise for Forewarned: A Sceptic's Guide to Prediction"The book is awash with entertaining examples of predictions that were astoundingly accurate and others that were spectacularly wrong" - IRISH TIMES, Praise for Forewarned: A Sceptic's Guide to PredictionThe book is awash with entertaining examples of predictions that were astoundingly accurate and others that were spectacularly wrong.

IllustratedYes

Dewey Decimal519.5

SynopsisAn entertaining journey through the ways in which we fool ourselves with numbers. Some people fear and mistrust numbers. Others want to use them for everything. After a long career as a statistician, Paul Goodwin has learned the hard way that the ones who want to use them for everything are a very good reason for the rest of us to fear and mistrust them. Something Doesn't Add Up is a field guide to the numbers that rule our world, even though they don't make sense. Wry, witty and humane, Goodwin explains mathematical subtleties so painlessly that you hardly need to think about numbers at all. He demonstrates how statistics that are meant to make life simpler often make it simpler than it actually is, but also reveals some of the ways we really can use maths to make better decisions. Enter the world of fitness tracking, the history of IQ testing, China's social credit system, Effective Altruism, and learn how someone should have noticed that Harold Shipman was killing his patients years before they actually did. In the right hands, maths is a useful tool. It's just a pity there are so many of the wrong hands about., We live in a world of numbers Which ones can we trust? Is there really a 'most liveable' city? What do exam results actually tell us? Why do we often fall for dodgy numbers but ignore the ones that matter? Join Paul Goodwin to find out how our faith in figures reliably leads us to bad decisions about everything from the universities we attend to the Fitbits on our wrists. With humour wisdom and a touch of mischief, he reveals how the tidy abstractions of mathematics fail to capture the glorious messiness of the real world. An easier life is possible when we learn to see through the fog of digits. Book jacket., A tour of the stupidest, most self-defeating, self-blinding ways in which supposedly clever people use math in everyday life.

LC Classification NumberQA276