Innumeracy: Mathematical Illiteracy and Its Consequences

Description

Why do even well-educated people understand so little about mathematics? And what are the costs of our innumeracy? John Allen Paulos, in his celebrated bestseller first published in 1988, argues that our inability to deal rationally with very large numbers and the probabilities associated with them results in misinformed governmental policies, confused personal decisions, and an increased susceptibility to pseudoscience of all kinds. Innumeracy lets us know what we're missing, and how we can do something about it. Sprinkling his discussion of numbers and probabilities with quirky stories and anecdotes, Paulos ranges freely over many aspects of modern life, from contested elections to sports stats, from stock scams and newspaper psychics to diet and medical claims, sex discrimination, insurance, lotteries, and drug testing. Readers of Innumeracy will be rewarded with scores of astonishing facts, a fistful of powerful ideas, and, most important, a clearer, more quantitative way of looking at their world. Introduction 1. Examples and Principles Big Numbers, Small Probabilities Blood, Mountains, and Burgers Gargantuan Numbers and the Forbes 400 Archimedes and Practically Infinite Numbers The Multiplication Principle and Mozart's Waltzes Triple-Scoop Cones and Von Neumann's Trick Julius Caesar and You 2. Probability and Coincidence Some Birthday vs. a Particular Birthday Chance Encounters A Stock-Market Scam Expected Values: From Blood Testing to Chuck-a-Luck Choosing a Spouse Coincidence and the Law Fair Coins and Life’s Winners and Losers The Hot Hand and the Clutch Hitter 3. Pseudoscience Innumeracy, Freud, and Pseudoscience Parapsychology Predictive Dreams Li'l Ol' Me and the Stars Extraterrestrial Life, Yes; Visitors in UFOs, No Fraudulent Medical Treatments Conditional Probability, Blackjack, and Drug Testing Numerology Logic and Pseudoscience 4. Whence Innumeracy? Remembrance of Innumeracies Past Secondary, College, and Graduate Education Innumeracy and the Tendency to Personalize The Ubiquity of Filtering and Coincidence Decisions and Framing Questions Math Anxiety Romantic Misconceptions Digression: A Logarithmic Safety Index 5. Statistics, Trade-Offs, and Society Priorities—Individual vs. Societal Laissez-Faire: Adam Smith, or Thomas Hobbes Birthdays, Death Days, and ESP Type I and Type II Errors: From Politics to Pascal's Wager Polling with Confidence Obtaining Personal Information Two Theoretical Results Correlation and Causation Breast Cancer, Muggings, and Wages: Simple Statistical Mistakes Odds and Addenda Close