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1
Find out why coins have no memory, whether Urgum the Axeman is likely to lose his head and join Riverboat Lil and Brett Shuffler in a mathematical tangle with swamp snakes. Murderous Maths books contain no nasty exercises and no boring sums. more Find out why coins have no memory, whether Urgum the Axeman is likely to lose his head and join Riverboat Lil and Brett Shuffler in a mathematical tangle with swamp snakes. Murderous Maths books contain no nasty exercises and no boring sums. less 
David SpiegelhalterThis is part of the Murderous Maths series, and is my favourite book. It is great. It is a book for secondary school kids full of cartoons and lovely characters like this filthy boy called Pongo McWhiffy, or the one I like best is an upper-class idiot called Binky Smallbrains who falls for every trick. It is a book about chance, luck and probability, and these are difficult things that people... (Source)
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Does the number of children gunned down double each year? Does anorexia kill 150,000 young women annually? Do white males account for only a sixth of new workers? Startling statistics shape our thinking about social issues. But all too often, these numbers are wrong. This book is a lively guide to spotting bad statistics and learning to think critically about these influential numbers. Damned Lies and Statistics is essential reading for everyone who reads or listens to the news, for students, and for anyone who relies on statistical information to understand social problems.
more Does the number of children gunned down double each year? Does anorexia kill 150,000 young women annually? Do white males account for only a sixth of new workers? Startling statistics shape our thinking about social issues. But all too often, these numbers are wrong. This book is a lively guide to spotting bad statistics and learning to think critically about these influential numbers. Damned Lies and Statistics is essential reading for everyone who reads or listens to the news, for students, and for anyone who relies on statistical information to understand social problems.
Joel Best bases his discussion on a wide assortment of intriguing contemporary issues that have garnered much recent media attention, including abortion, cyberporn, homelessness, the Million Man March, teen suicide, the U.S. census, and much more. Using examples from the New York Times, the Washington Post, and other major newspapers and television programs, he unravels many fascinating examples of the use, misuse, and abuse of statistical information.
In this book Best shows us exactly how and why bad statistics emerge, spread, and come to shape policy debates. He recommends specific ways to detect bad statistics, and shows how to think more critically about "stat wars," or disputes over social statistics among various experts. Understanding this book does not require sophisticated mathematical knowledge; Best discusses the most basic and most easily understood forms of statistics, such as percentages, averages, and rates.
This accessible book provides an alternative to either naively accepting the statistics we hear or cynically assuming that all numbers are meaningless. It shows how anyone can become a more intelligent, critical, and empowered consumer of the statistics that inundate both the social sciences and our media-saturated lives. less David SpiegelhalterThis is written by a sociologist, so we have moved on from psychology to sociology. I like this book because one of the things that really irritates me as a statistician is when numbers are bandied around as though they are God-given truths and can’t be argued with. There is a nice quote from Joel Best that “all statistics are social products, the results of people’s efforts”. He says you should... (Source)
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3
"Clear, balanced, and lively." -- Steven Pinker, bestselling author of How the Mind Works ARE YOU AFRAID OF THE "RIGHT" RISKS?
Do you worry more about radiation from nuclear power or from the sun?
Are you more afraid of getting cancer than heart disease?
Are you safer talking on your cell phone or using a hands-free device when you drive?
Do you think global warming is a serious threat to your health?
GET THE FACTS BEHIND YOUR FEARS--AND DISCOVER . . . HOW RISKY IS IT, REALLY?
International risk expert... more "Clear, balanced, and lively." -- Steven Pinker, bestselling author of How the Mind Works ARE YOU AFRAID OF THE "RIGHT" RISKS?
Do you worry more about radiation from nuclear power or from the sun?
Are you more afraid of getting cancer than heart disease?
Are you safer talking on your cell phone or using a hands-free device when you drive?
Do you think global warming is a serious threat to your health?
GET THE FACTS BEHIND YOUR FEARS--AND DISCOVER . . . HOW RISKY IS IT, REALLY?
International risk expert David Ropeik takes an in-depth look at our perceptions of risk and explains the hidden factors that make us unnecessarily afraid of relatively small threats and not afraid enough of some really big ones. This read is a comprehensive, accessible, and entertaining mixture of what's been discovered about how and why we fear--too much or too little. It brings into focus the danger of The Perception Gap: when our fears don't match the facts, and we make choices that create additional risks.
This book will not decide for you what is really risky and what isn't. That's up to you. HOW RISKY IS IT, REALLY? will tell you how you make those decisions. Understanding how we perceive risk is the first step toward making wiser and healthier choices for ourselves as individuals and for society as a whole.
TEST YOUR OWN "RISK RESPONSE" IN DOZENS OF SELF-QUIZZES! less David SpiegelhalterYes, this is a completely non-technical book, which is looking at things from the point of view of psychology. It is essentially a review of the recent research on risk perception. He is looking at how dangerous it is if we get our interpretations wrong. He uses our response to 9/11 quite a lot as an example, but he has also recently written about the response to Fukushima and nuclear risk. (Source)
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4
Professor Stephen Senn | 3.76
If you think that statistics has nothing to say about what you do or how you could do it better, then you are either wrong or in need of a more interesting job. Stephen Senn explains here how statistics determines many decisions about medical care--from allocating resources for health, to determining which drugs to license, to cause-and-effect in relation to disease. He tackles big themes: clinical trials and the development of medicines, life tables, vaccines and their risks or lack of them, smoking and lung cancer and even the power of prayer. He entertains with puzzles and paradoxes and... more If you think that statistics has nothing to say about what you do or how you could do it better, then you are either wrong or in need of a more interesting job. Stephen Senn explains here how statistics determines many decisions about medical care--from allocating resources for health, to determining which drugs to license, to cause-and-effect in relation to disease. He tackles big themes: clinical trials and the development of medicines, life tables, vaccines and their risks or lack of them, smoking and lung cancer and even the power of prayer. He entertains with puzzles and paradoxes and covers the lives of famous statistical pioneers. By the end of the book the reader will see how reasoning with probability is essential to making rational decisions in medicine, and how and when it can guide us when faced with choices that impact our health and/or life. Stephen Senn has been a Professor of Pharmaceutical and Health Statistics at the University College of London since 1995. In 2001 he won George C. Challis Award of the University of Florida for contributions to biostatistics. Senn's previous two books are Statistical Issues in Drug Development (Wiley, 1997) and Cross-over Trials in Clinical Research (Wiley, 1993). He is the member of seven editorial boards including Statistics in Medicine and Pharmaceutical Statistics. less David SpiegelhalterI know Stephen, and he is full of very entertaining jokes and rude remarks about people. This book is somewhat similar to The Drunkard’s Walk in that it covers the history of probability. But since Stephen’s background is in medical statistics, he looks at clinical trials and other medical studies. (Source)
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5
Esta apasionante lectura nos descubre la naturaleza de los procesos arbitrarios de la vida cotidiana y cambia para siempre la percepción que tenemos de ellos. En 1905 Albert Einstein publicó una impactante explicación sobre el movimiento browniano -el movimiento arbitrario de partículas- comparándolo con la clase de movimiento que se observaría en el caminar de un borracho. La comparación se convirtió desde entonces en una poderosa herramienta para entender el movimiento puramente arbitrario que, por definición, no tiene ningún modelo específico.
En este nuevo libro, Leonard Mlodinow... more Esta apasionante lectura nos descubre la naturaleza de los procesos arbitrarios de la vida cotidiana y cambia para siempre la percepción que tenemos de ellos. En 1905 Albert Einstein publicó una impactante explicación sobre el movimiento browniano -el movimiento arbitrario de partículas- comparándolo con la clase de movimiento que se observaría en el caminar de un borracho. La comparación se convirtió desde entonces en una poderosa herramienta para entender el movimiento puramente arbitrario que, por definición, no tiene ningún modelo específico.
En este nuevo libro, Leonard Mlodinow examina la ley del caminar del borracho en relación con la vida humana diaria, con las diversas decisiones que continuamente tomamos empujados por acontecimientos arbitrarios que, unidos a nuestras reacciones, influyen en la mayor parte de nuestra vida personal. less David SpiegelhalterThis is a general introduction to the history of probability and the way it comes into everyday life. It intersperses the historical development with modern applications, and looks at finance, sport, gambling, lotteries and coincidences. (Source)
Gabriel CoarnaLeonard Mlodinow's "The Drunkarkd's Walk" -more precisely, the section on the "Monty Hall" problem- totally changed how I look-at/think-about probabilities and choices in general; this has impacted almost every real-life choice I've made since I read this book. (Source)
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