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A Mathematician Reads the Newspaper
With the same user-friendly, quirky, and perceptive approach that made Innumeracy a bestseller, John Allen Paulos travels though the pages of the daily newspaper showing how math and numbers are a key element in many of the articles we read every day. From the Senate, SATs, and sex, to crime, celebrities, and cults, he takes stories that may not seem to involve mathematic...more
Paperback, 224 pages
Published
September 26th 1997
by Anchor
(first published April 6th 1995)
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A biochemist couldn't quite make it through this book, but close enough...The kind of book that eats like a banana, 3/4 is really the perfect amount, then you get full of it.
This book was written in 1996 and there were 5.8 billion people in the world. It is 2012 and now there are 7.8 billion people in the world. This book was cool, because the author went through all the sections of the newspaper starting with the politics which he claims does not really tell you shit about truth upon headlines to get you to buy the paper ending his explanations with sports and entertainment. People get fixated on words like Korupt, strikes, embezzlement, murder. When you divide the...more
A good book. Paulos is funny and offers a treasure trove of examples from the contemporary news (the mid-90s when he was writing) that have "a legitimate mathematical component" as he puts it. This book can be viewed as a follow up to his earlier book "Innumeracy" that furthers his case that the publics inability to grapple basic mathematical arguments has substantial social consequences.
My only gripe is that, at times, he makes the typical mathematician's error...more
My only gripe is that, at times, he makes the typical mathematician's error...more
I enjoyed this book quite a bit, though not as much as I enjoyed Paulos' earlier Innumeracy. He turns phrases beautifully and explains not-so-obvious mathematical phenomena very clearly. (For example, if you go up against a tennis player with whom you win 40 percent of your points, your chances of winning a match are only a paltry .05 percent - yes, one-twentieth of one percent. Sound crazy? The proof is on page 176 of the paperback edition.) My only complaint is that some of Paulos' ideas ...more
This book, as I probably should have realized, is largely comprised of Paulos's vague musings. When he spends more than 2-3 pages on a topic, it gets insightful, but he does that far too seldom. There are plenty of good nuggets here, but the lazy format just doesn't hold up (too many sections of "Hey, here's an idea that I find moderately interesting, but I'm not going to bother digging into it."
I appreciate why it isn't especially math-y, but that limits some of his argume...more
I appreciate why it isn't especially math-y, but that limits some of his argume...more
Paulos is a witty mathematician and makes excellent points in his analyses of newspapers focusing on the numbers, statistics, ignorance and misrepresentations. Arranged as newspaper content, with politics and current topics first, followed by local news, lifestyles, science, and sports, he writes short "articles" with composite made up headlines to draw you in; not any different than any newspaper. Published in 1995, the topics and references are dated, but the message is not.
I would ...more
I would ...more
I loved Innumeracy and liked Beyond Numeracy, so I had high hopes for this book.
It was OK, but not spectacular. There was too much wordiness and not enough math. I was hoping for a more detailed analysis with various examples of how math, statistics, graphs, etc are used to mislead or misinform newspaper readers. Instead, this is a very cursory touch on various slightly math-related political and economic concerns.
It was OK, but not spectacular. There was too much wordiness and not enough math. I was hoping for a more detailed analysis with various examples of how math, statistics, graphs, etc are used to mislead or misinform newspaper readers. Instead, this is a very cursory touch on various slightly math-related political and economic concerns.
Martin
added it
I love mathematics. I love newspapers. I also love facts, and separating those from fiction, and clarity, and healthy skeptical thinking, and a vigorous dose of humor. This book satisfies all those interests. What's fascinating is that each chapter could be exploded not into just into an entire book, but volumes of books. His brevity though, keeps your interest, although he runs way too short on some very interesting topics (only four pages on baseball? Criminal!). Great fun. I have to read mor...more
Excellent book. I always suspected that the numbers and statistics freely used even in best news papers and their analysis and conclusions drawn were factually incorrect. The book proved that my suspicion was correct. The relative importance and implications of news items in every news paper are grossly erroneous. Read the book and you will find out how.
Para el paroxÃstico estilo periodÃstico de nuestro paÃs, la mayor enseñanza de este libro es la denuncia que hace de esa tan fructÃfera como nefasta alianza entre periodistas y abogados –sobre todo aquellos que representan a personas que afirman haber sufrido perjuicios por culpa de productos, servicios o polÃticas defectuosas.Porque si bien seguramente buena parte de esas denuncias son justificadas, lo que Allen critica, y sustenta en lógica matemática, es esa moraleja naif con que todos los di...more
This book was interesting look at how numbers are used in our society to get someone's point across. It was interesting, although it wasn't anything new in my opinion. The layout of the book was nice, with each section approximately the length of a newspaper article.
I enjoyed it, but I don't think I can use it for a class. Paulos is too witty for the book to read well from an undergraduate perspective, and the book is a little too outdated (freshmen this year were born around 1993!)
Similar to Freakonomics but written nearly ten years earlier, this book analyzes the numbers and statistics behind media nonsense.
A wonderful read for anybody who wants a quick glance at how mathematics controls most things around us.
This book was so good, it presented ways that numbers have so much significance in our every day lives.
Not as good as I'd hoped...maybe my expectations were too high for the writing of a mathematician!
This gave me the confidence I needed to believe that what I was reading was nonsense after all!
Good, but not great. The author advocates for numeracy, but doesn't offer methods.
funny exploration of common statistical errors in newspapersv
Dorky but interesting in the context of the current info viz boom.
This was not as good as I was expecting. There were some interesting and humorous sections, but way too much pontificating for the sake of it.
Not sure I'll read another of these.
Not sure I'll read another of these.
I hoped this book would be more mathematically rigorous. I was not expecting a both *for* mathematicians, but there was very little actual math in this book. It touched on some important and interesting ideas, but never got too deep. I would have liked a more in-depth discussion of some of the topics.
Not bad, but not for me.
Not bad, but not for me.
This book got a little dry after reading through page after page of the similarly themed material. Ultimately, I think I was only 80% finished with the book when I had to bring it back to the library. It was a good read...'just something that's probably best enjoyed in bits and pieces over more of an extended period of time.
I found it an interesting book which is longer than it could have been. I suggest "The Numbers Game" by Michael Blastland and Andrew Dilnot to the person interested in the topic.
http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/47618...
http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/47618...
The fact that average Americans fail at math makes it super easy to manipulate them via the media through intimidation.
This country as we know it would probably fall apart if people started to pay attention to math and science.
This country as we know it would probably fall apart if people started to pay attention to math and science.
"How numbers can be misinterpreted and misused in reporting. Many interesting number tricks, but less not consistently great. Wears out before it ends."
So much fun! This book taught me a lot about ways to analyze simple statistics. Now I cringe almost every week when I read the newspaper.
A few interesting points in critical reading, otherwise the dude was too full of himself...and not enough writing about cookies.
I enjoyed the book, but did not find it particularly insightful.
Amusing, but probably only for mathematicians.
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