Rating: 
Summary: GOOD ANALYSIS, GREAT ANECDOTES ABOUT THE VALUE OF NUMERACY
Review: In this short book, Paulos does an outstanding job of pointing out what lack of number intimacy can do to a person. The anecdotes are outstanding, especially the ones on large numbers and on probability. For example, he shows how one is fooled by probability: If we have 23 people in a room, what is the probability that two of them have the same birthday? 50%!! Very conterintuitive. The author also tries to understand why it is almost considered acceptable for a person to admit that one is "bad with numbers", while it not being ok to be "bad with words". The realm of psychology is not his forte, but the ideas he points to are interesting. Overall, this is an easy to read book, much easier even to one literate with numbers. I was done with it in 3 hours, and was left wanting more, so much so that I am now buying some more of his works. If they are half as good as Innumeracy, then they will be good enough.
Rating: 
Summary: Important message, but missing the audience?
Review: Innumerates in the press and politics threaten reasonable trade-offs because of wrong perception about the real risks of different actions or inactions. This perception mistakes are due to innumeracy, or incapability to read and understand the language of numbers, among important groups. In this rather funny book (or essay), Paulos is showing a lot of examples, especially of journalists, having no concept at all of numbers, especially really big and really small ones. Too much of the book is devoted to the examples, however. Each and every one is quite funny, but they tend to be repetitive after a while. Besides, I'm really afraid Paulos is missing his target. I bought the book because I too am upset about innumerates, but therefore I've seen a whole lot of the examples before. Innumerates probably don't mind buying the book in the first place. (If that's wrong: terrific!) The last part of the book is far better, and I even learned some useful math/statistics on the way. The law of big numbers, and the central limit theorem are both explained elegantly, and some implications new to me were presented. Paulos is a good writer, though, and is very easy and quick to read. So if you've got a couple of hours and a few quid to spare, you might as well read it. There are certainly some anecdotes from gambling theory you didn't know.
Rating: 
Summary: Disappointing
Review: Not only were there errata in the book, including the problem on page 86 which must have been improperly phrased, but there are too many asides (you know, when the author starts talking to you and loses his train of thought). Perhaps some of this is corrected in a later edition, but no in the first; it does not even have an index. It is entertaining and enlightening to those whom Paulos attempts to reach, but not as much so to those whom he probably does reach. I would recommend either Huff's _How to Lie With Statistics_ or Sagan's _The Demon Haunted World_ (or even _Billions and Billions_). Paulos' book does not live up to its hype or status as a bestseller. Nonetheless, it is short and worth the read.
Rating:
Summary: Glaring error
Review: Not so much a review as a comment on a glaring error. On p. 86 of my edition, Paulos asks us to envision Myrtle, a girl with one sibling (either a brother or sister). He asks eWhat is the conditional probability that Myrtlefs sibling is a brother?f and concludes it must be 2/3, since there are four equally likely possibilities for the breakdown in siblings: BB, BG, GB and GG. (B= boy, G= girl). BB doesnft apply here, and in 2 of the 3 remaining cases there is a brother. So in other words, whenever anyone tells you they have a sibling, in the absence of any other information, you can conclude that the sibling is twice as likely to be of the opposite sex to the speaker, than of the same sex. Huh?! Sure, math sometimes provides some interesting counterintuitive results, but I mean come on! Talk about not seeing the forest for the trees! What Paulos apparently fails to realize is that the breakdown of possible siblings is actually BG, GB, G1G2 and G2G1. Or put into humanspeak, gMyrtle can have an older brother, younger brother, older sister, or younger sister.h So of course, the conditional probability that Myrtlefs sibling is a brother is 1/2, just what youfd expect. Sort of flabbergasting that the author of Innumeracy could be so innumerate himself! Addendum-- g...The correct answer is, of course, 1/2.h (John Allen Paulos)
After posting this comment, a subsequent reader comment averred that the Myrtle problem in _Innumeracy_ was given correctly, and that the problem is esensitive to phrasingf. This comment is incorrect. The problem as given in the book, is in fact, erroneous, as I stated. I think I can clear this issue up once and for all. Here is the problem as phrased in _Innumeracy_: "Consider now some randomly selected family of four which is known to have at least one daughter. Say Myrtle is her name. Given this, what is the conditional probability that Myrtle's sibling is a brother? Given that Myrtle has a younger sibling, what is the conditional possibility [sic] that her sibling is a brother? The answers are, respectively, 2/3 and 1/2." A few days after my initial posting, I received an email from the author himself indicating that, for the 2/3 probability to hold true, there is one additional criterion required of the family. Rather than just being some erandomly selected family of four which is known to have at least one daughterf as stated in the book, the family must also meet the following criterion: gOne picks a [house of a family of four] at random, rings the bell, and... a [daughter], if there is one, will always answer the door... if there are none, a son answers.h (The quote is from Paulosfs email.) The author went on to concede that gWithout these assumptions or others equivalent to them, the correct answer is, of course, 1/2.h The stipulation that a daughter always answers the door if the family has a daughter is not implicit in the phrase erandomly selected family of four which is known to have at least one daughterf. This is the crux of the error. The error might have been more immediately apparent to readers (and the author) if he written about the slightly more counterintuitive case of the 100% conditional probability of Myrtle having a brother if Myrtle were a boy (oddly-named).
Rating:
Summary: Convinced me to stop playing the lottery
Review: OK.. I'm a theatre major so it doesn't take to much for me to be impressed by numeric intelligence. But this is a good starting point to thinking of the "facts" of various cases in a new light. Not the entire story but a bit of motivation to think for oneself.
And it did convince me to stop playing the lottery so it has clearly paid for itself many times over.
Rating:
Summary: Convinced me to stop playing the lottery
Review: OK.. I'm a theatre major so it doesn't take to much for me to be impressed by numeric intelligence. But this is a good starting point to thinking of the "facts" of various cases in a new light. Not the entire story but a bit of motivation to think for oneself.
And it did convince me to stop playing the lottery so it has clearly paid for itself many times over.
Rating: 
Summary: a review from an iliterateon innumeracy
Review: paulos is full of himself. after a couple of pages, i got tired of reading his jibberish which amounted to nothing more than him showing off his vocabulary. i found the book choppy and hard to follow. regret buying the book, at least it was paperback and cheap. stay away.... dont buy the book.
Rating:
Summary: a review from an iliterateon innumeracy
Review: paulos is full of himself. after a couple of pages, i got tired of reading his jibberish which amounted to nothing more than him showing off his vocabulary. i found the book choppy and hard to follow. regret buying the book, at least it was paperback and cheap. stay away.... dont buy the book.
Rating:
Summary: A nice little book if it finds the right audience
Review: Someone recommended this book to me and I can't remember who it was; it turn there are certain people I know to whom I would do the same, and others that I would warn off. If you are earnestly interested in learning some practical math yet utterly uninitiated in numerical ways this may be the book for you. If, however, you are firmly stuck in your innumerate ways, I doubt that this book is compelling or shocking enough to convince you otherwise. If you are numerate, but curious about how the other half lives, you will need to manage bouts of boredom sitting in the choir while Paulos preaches. I mostly fall into the last catergory, yet I managed to find some revelations and some interesting bits here and there. Also, the author has a friendly, conversational style with a touch of irreverance -- I appreciate that. Yet I nearly gave up on this book before I reached the halfway point, and I RARELY give up on books. What pulled me through is the author's excellent advice from the foreword: feel free to skip the bits that are too complicated for the novitiate or too obvious for the adept. A generous gift from the author -- take advantage of it and you will enjoy the book all the more. :) This book focuses heavily on statistics although it does touch on a number of other flavors of math, including fractions and magnitudes. Still, the best concrete examples come from stats, yet I am sure that better books must exist for providing the "gee-whiz! I didn't realize what a boob I was for not realizing X, Y and Z about real life statistics" revelations that may shake the sluggish right brain of the innumerate. This book has the advantage of being thin, though, and it does fit nicely into one's pocket. ;) The book also comments on potential social factors that turn budding math whizzes into the innumerate masses -- I didn't expect it, and it is refreshing.
Rating: 
Summary: Book does not address its subtitle
Review: The mathematically literate will enjoy this book, since Paulos is preaching to the choir. That was not his intention. He had hoped to reach the innumerate, or mathematically illerate, and I doubt that he has. The book has been out available since 1988 and society has not changed by it. Whereas overall I do not fault his math (I found 2 errors), a am disturbed by his approach. To the innumerate he will come across as condescending. Additionally, he sometimes does not define his terms or nor does he always explain his solutions, which must be frustrating for the innumerate. He is not going to win converts! My sharpest criticism is that he does not address the consequences of mathematical illiteracy. I would like to see an annual cost to society - $1 billion? $1 trillion? lack of competition in the global economy? job losses? etc. If he had performed some serious analysis to arrive at the bottom line, then perhaps some prominent politicians would have taken notice and the issue would have been addressed. On the other hand, Homo sapiens have been around for some 100,000+ years and humans have been doing serious math for less than 1% of that time span. I think that for the average human, regardless of nationality, logic and mathematics are intimidating and challenging, and that this is not going to change. Jeffrey P. Schaffer, Dept. of Sci. & Mathematics, Napa Valley College, Calif.
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