Something Doesn't Add Up: Surviving Statistics in a Post-Truth World
Paul Goodwin
Feb 2020 · Profile Audio · Narrated by Roger Davis
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8 hr 44 min
Unabridged
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About this audiobook
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 tour of the stupidest, self-defeating, self-blinding ways supposedly clever people use maths in everyday life.
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 can use maths to make better decisions. Along the way we learn about fitness tracking, the history of IQ testing, China's social credit system, Effective
Altruism, and 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.
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 can use maths to make better decisions. Along the way we learn about fitness tracking, the history of IQ testing, China's social credit system, Effective
Altruism, and 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.
About the author
Paul Goodwin is an Emeritus Professor at the University of Bath, where he taught and researched statistics, forecasting and decision making. He has a PhD from Lancaster University and an MSc from Warwick University and he has acted as a consultant to both leading companies and government departments. He has written numerous articles and papers and several books, including most recently, Forewarned: A Sceptic's Guide to Prediction. In 2013, Goodwin was elected as an Honorary Fellow of the International Institute of Forecasters in recognition of his contribution to forecasting.
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