Innumeracy

This New York Times bestseller shows how understanding probability and statistics can change your life: “Brief, witty, and full of practical applications.” —Time Magazine

Why do even well-educated people understand so little about mathematics? And what are the costs of our innumeracy? John Allen Paulos 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 to 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.

“This admirable little book [can be read] in two hours. Chances are that they could be among the most enlightening and even profitable 120 minutes you ever spent.” —Chicago Sun-Times

“Like carrying on a conversation with an engaging, articulate math whiz who easily shifts from the profound to the funny.” —Business Week

“Paulos makes numbers, probability, and statistics perform like so many trained seals for the reader’s entertainment.” —Chicago Tribune