The Numbers Game: The Commonsense Guide to Understanding Numbers in the News, in Politics, and in Life

by Michael Blastland, Andrew Dilnot

The Strunk & White of statistics team up to help the average person navigate the numbers in the news.

Drawing on their hugely popular BBC Radio 4 show More or Less,, journalist Michael Blastland and internationally known economist Andrew Dilnot delight, amuse, and convert American mathphobes by showing how our everyday experiences make sense of numbers.

The radical premise of The Numbers Game is to show how much we already know, and give practical ways to use our knowledge to become cannier consumers of the media. In each concise chapter, the authors take on a different theme—such as size, chance, averages, targets, risk, measurement, and data—and present it as a memorable and entertaining story.

If you’ve ever wondered what “average” really means, whether the scare stories about cancer risk should convince you to change your behavior, or whether a story you read in the paper is biased (and how), you need this book. Blastland and Dilnot show how to survive and thrive on the torrent of numbers that pours through everyday life. It’s the essential guide to every cause you love or hate, and every issue you follow, in the language everyone uses.

Genres: Nonfiction, Mathematics, Science, Economics, Theory, Social, Number

210 pages, Hardcover

First published December 24, 2008

Reviews

[Ted · Rating 4 out of 5]

I don't think I'll ever need to refer to this book again - otherwise I would keep it - so I've donated the book. It's a very good read, however, especially for readers who are not too conversant with math, and occasionally ask themselves "what does that thing in the news about statistics or probability or the ways that the government is rating teachers etc etc etc really mean? Is it real, or is it a charade?

[original review]
This was a real good read, much more rewarding than I would have thought possible for me. Why? Because I'm sort of a numbers nut. My Dad was a high school math teacher, I always enjoyed and did well in math, I ended up getting my BS degree in math, and spent a career as a software engineer working in real time systems. I have always used math and numbers in day to day life, and am pretty decently knowledgeable about both probability and statistics.

Well, despite that background, I found this book kept my attention, and presented views on how numbers are used in the media which are really worth keeping in mind. For example, one chapter (Performance: The Whole Elephant) talks about measures of performance, which have become the accepted way of making most judgements within such fields as education and health care nowadays. A lot rides on the outcomes, for everyone concerned. The problem is that most ways of measuring outcomes are very narrow, focusing on one or two easily measured (and easily gamed) aspects of exceedingly complex issues. (How best to improve reading skills in primary education? How to improve health care outcomes in emergency rooms?)

Another chapter (Risk: Bring Home the Bacon) relates how we are often fooled by reading how engaging in some activity will increase by a significant percentage the chances of a very negative outcome. The fact that must be ascertained whenever we hear something like this is, what is the initial risk that is being increased by (say) 50% by engaging in the risky activity? Are we increasing our chances of being in an accident from 10 in 100 to 15 in 100? Or from 10 in a million to 15 in a million? Two very different cases.

No special mathematical ability is required to get a good deal out of this book. The book isn't long, and isn't hard to read.

[Eric_W]

I'm looking forward to reading this book. The way the media, and even people who should know better, abuse numbers so as to make real risk assessment very difficult is discouraging. For example, the American Institute of Cancer Research says we should eliminate eating bacon because doing so increases our risk of colorectal cancer by 21%. That is true on the face of it and would appear startling until you ask what the baseline is. About 45 of 1000 men will get that cancer, or about 5 per 100 men. If every one of those 100 men ate bacon every day, 6 men would get the cancer, an increase of about 20%, yet actual risk -all other risk factors aside remains really quite low at 5%.(This is an example - I'm not sure of the exact numbers) The principle is the same.

I was frosted recently by the news that taking a multi-vitamin every day did nothing to prevent heart disease or increase life-span. Now my crap detector really started going into overtime. Without even reading the study I can suspect some flaws, because there is no way you can do a truly blind epidemiologic study on 160,000 women over 8 years and exclude all the other variables. Can't be done. And since there was no way to predict ahead of time which participants would be more likely to live longer than others and pair them with similar candidates, how in the world could they come to such sweeping conclusions. And this assumes their diets were absolutely equivalent in all other respects. And then to make things worse, they suggest that in order to achieve those benefits you should eat a diet rich in fiber and greens etc. etc. without a shred of evidence that it would make a whit of difference, for precisely the same reasons as the invalidity of the vitamin study.

[David Thomas · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is from their BBC4 radio show which I remember hearing an episode or two several years ago on NPR here in the states. This was for my local book club choice for January. I was afraid that it was going to be like my Statistics course books from college, so I approached it with resolute dread. But I was happily surprised and thoroughly enjoyed it. I was even able to use its message to challenge a FB post a couple of days after I finished it. I would recommend everyone to read this book.

[Jess K · Rating 2 out of 5]

I've learned a few things from this book but the writing makes me want to scream!!!

[Mark Fallon · Rating 3 out of 5]

A book on numbers that doesn't require a degree in mathematics to understand. The authors point out both the need to measure as well as the limits to what we can measure.

[Mazola1 · Rating 3 out of 5]

The Numbers Game is a fascinating look at statistics and polls. The take home message is that you can't believe everything you read, especially polls, but if you understand how polls are done (how things are counted) you may be better able to cut through the crap. The book contains some truths which are surprising, but probably shouldn't be. For instance, when the government or some organization reports that there are so many of this or that in the country, be it illegal aliens or dogs and cats, no one really counted them all. So it pays to know what was counted and how the final figures were arrived at.

Then there is the tendency of things to clump by chance, which is often reported, and believed by many to be, a significant cluster or increase. Or the fact that statistics can be misinterpreted. Case in point: a survey reported that Republicans enjoy sex more than Democrats do. Trouble is that more women identify as Democrats than Republicans, and men report they enjoy sex more than women do. So what seemed like a party difference was actually a gender difference.

I don't know if I'll never be fooled by statistics and polls again (I doubt it), but I know I'll always think a little harder about poll numbers before believing them.

[Andre Hermanto · Rating 2 out of 5]

Good:
* A decent source of introduction on how numbers could be used to mislead people.

Bad:
* The authors made some ridiculous guesses even in a field that they don't know anything about, e.g. they claimed that Homo Florensis were probably normal human, who were diseased and lacking nutrition, instead of a separate species.
* Outdated.

[Trevor · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is quite a fun little book. There are probably better books on how to be sceptical of statistics, but there probably can’t be too many of these books. The problem is that we have a remarkable faith in numbers. They are scientific-ish and so we tend not to question them. And anything we don’t question is going to be a problem. The other part of this problem is that even when we have been warned that we need to be sceptical, well, it is like everything else in life - you’re more likely to be sceptical about things that you are already sceptical about. That is, not things that confirm your own biases. The book ends with a discussion of some ‘facts’ about climate change that end up being anything but. They make the point that they are not climate change deniers, their problem is that climate change can be the go to answer for all things that correlate with a rise in temperatures, and there might not be any relationship at all. And so the real cause remains hidden.

I’ve long hated people who say that correlation doesn’t mean causation. My response is generally to say, yeah, but show me a single causation where there is no correlation. So, as a means of being sceptical it isn’t as useful as people think it might be. Which is really just saying the same thing I said at the start - that being sceptical is harder than it sounds.

One of the nice things that is done in the book is to give you strategies to check numbers you hear. They get you to guess how many petrol stations there are in your country. They say one way to do this is to think of all of the petrol stations there are in your local area. And then to work out how many people there are in your local area. Then you can divide the population of your country by the population of your local area and multiple that by the number of petrol stations in your area and that should give you a fairly good estimate. I like that, but I’m not sure I would ever have thought of it myself. Although, they use the same tactic multiple times. Especially with things like medical statistics - things like 40% of all people over 60 have some illness. Again, converting the percentage into numbers of people can make the statistic seem crazy. I do this at work sometimes - like changing 60% into 3 in every 5 people - it always seems remarkable to me how those two ways of saying the same thing can seem so different.

I liked this book - it is quick and written for the general public and doesn’t expect you to have any higher degree in mathematics - or even to have finished high school mathematics. These are the kinds of numeracy skills we should all be armed with. A painless read that might save you from embarrassment, in the way Googling something before you post it can save you from feeling like an idiot.

[Prince · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book does to mathematics what Freakonomics: A Rogue Economist Explores the Hidden Side of Everything did to economics.

Filled with stories grabbed from headlines, Blastland and Dilnot dissect the wayward analyses behind them, introducing the concepts of mathematical thinking like counting (it's harder than you think it is), averages, risk, sampling and more. Written with wit and charm, it aims to impress upon us the fact that real life is too messy for the strict formulas of mathematics and statistics, and any politician or news channel attempting to squeeze it into a simple bar chart or ranking table must be viewed upon with utmost suspicion.

A quick read that is certain to give you a new perspective on everyday things around you. Highly recommended.

[Coral · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5 stars- I would recommend this book to anyone who wants to navigate the world of numbers without investing too much time into statistics or politics. Blastland and Dilnot's use of examples is the highlight of the book, but the examples mainly focus on the UK and the US, so it might be less impactful if you live elsewhere. The writing is conversational and clear, but the organization can sometimes meander a bit too much for my taste (despite how non-existent the organization is in this review haha). Even so, I think that this book gives crucial tips for anyone trying to be an informed citizen, and if you have the time, give it a read.

[Daniel Wilson · Rating 4 out of 5]

Decent book. I would recommend for people who have ever said "I'm not a math person." It talks about statistics principles (i.e. average, sampling, size) in a very inviting, no-x's-or-y's, fun way - with accessible analogies and interesting examples. It doesn't feel at all like high school math, yet it teaches how these concepts are used, misused, and abused. The reader stands to gain intuition and reasoning skills that allow them to navigate any numerical claim more fluently and freely than they did before.

[Dave · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was pretty good. It's about common mistakes that people make with statistics: pitfalls of averages, ranges, clustering and so on.

I felt it took a little while to get going. I wonder if I was just dim on the day I started it and read the first few chapters. After that it was very good.

[David Leemon · Rating 4 out of 5]

An excellent, easy to read book that I recommend to anybody who works with numbers, especially those who use numbers for planning, such as managers and politicians.

[Ngee Poo · Rating 5 out of 5]

Great examples and explanation of how numbers aren't as objective as one might think.

[Jay Larbes · Rating 1 out of 5]

I felt like this was one of those books that could have been condensed into 20-30 pages. Very repetitive.

Also, a bit outdated reading in 2021.

[Marty Greenwell · Rating 4 out of 5]

Makes you look at all statistics from a nuanced view

[Kate Martin · Rating 3 out of 5]

I got this book because I don’t know much about statistics and wanted to learn about it in a way that wasn’t dry. This book had quirky examples and was written for journalists to spot dramatic or too-good-to-be-true statistics in their reporting. So that was good for me as I’m not a big numbers person. Not a really remarkable book but it served its purpose for me

[Brad · Rating 4 out of 5]

I received this book for free through Goodreads First Reads. It's still an honest review, but the FTC wanted you to know...
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The Numbers Game is a great guide to how to understand numbers and how they are used, especially in politics and the news. Blastland and Dilnot use daily-life examples to illustrate statistical principles in a way that is easy to read and even entertaining.

Some of my favorite examples include: describing how a statistical trend is similar to a man walking his dog on a retractable leash up or down a hill (small up and down movements of the dog don't always indicate the direction that the man is walking), comparing the poem of the six blind men describing different parts of an elephant to measuring performance in a company or country, and most especially their discussion about asking "how big is it?" about numbers that are provided to us (dividing out the billions to the number of people it affects, etc).

Because of my exposure to the sciences, I was already careful and wary about statistics that were quoted to me. I didn't really learn a lot of new things in this book, but I was reminded of a lot of good practices for times when I am confronted with numbers. I think this book would be a great read for someone who wants to better understand what numbers actually mean when they hear or see them (thinking particularly of people like my mother and other non-science people).

[Elizabeth · Rating 5 out of 5]

The Numbers Game: The Commonsense Guide to Understanding Numbers in the News, in Politics, in Life by Michael Blastland and Andrew Bilmont (pp. 210)

A must read book on interpreting numbers presented in our daily headlines by the British men behind the TV program, More or Less. Blastland and Bilmont do a fantastic job of speaking in plain, non-math speak and presenting interesting examples of how stats are often blown out of proportion in our 30 second sound bit culture. Highly accessible and easy to read.

Admirably, they are not making any political points in the examples they present. They also do a nice job of equating some of their UK cases in terms of the US population and society giving some interesting comparisons between UK and US society as icing on the sociological/economic cake. Written originally in 2007, many of the topics covered resonate better today: healthcare, education, global warming, corruption, and more.

The Numbers Game should be required gift givng for anyone who wants to have a more reasonable conversation with someone with a closed mind who just parrots cable news headlines and blog posts while insisting the world is ending tomorrow. It should also be required reading for all news producers and journalists as it was originally intended.

[Kimberly White · Rating 4 out of 5]

Good book about the kind of numbers and statistics you see in the news, and how to interpret them properly. For example, if you hear something like "eating a carrot a day doubles your chance of getting liver cancer" that sounds significant. But it could mean that carrots double your chance of cancer from 1/2% to 1%, and news reports rarely specify. Also, it's important to know the accuracy of any medical tests you take. If you have a positive mammogram you still only have about a 10% chance of having breast cancer, because of a combination of the rarity of cancer and the high occurrence of false positives. Not to mention that when a politician waxes outraged about Congress wasting millions of dollars on something she disapproves of, you should bear in mind that those millions of dollars constitute mere tenths of tenths of a percent of the entire federal budget (virtually all of which goes to defense and entitlements). And so on. I enjoyed it mightily.

[John · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book is based on a popular British show called More or Less in which a writer and an economist try to teach the general public to make sense of the data that swamp us each day. For me, the most valuable part of the book involves the numerous examples of how data have been presented by journalists and politicians to support particular viewpoints. The specific topics covered include making sense of averages, the (over)use of performance measures, assessing risk, making sense of sampling, understanding data in general, statistical comparisons, and assessing causation. The authors provide much grist for the skeptical mill, all the while entertaining the reader (and perhaps even worrying some).

The statistically minded reader won't learn much about data or data analysis, but all readers will learn a lot about how data are used and misused.

[Pat · Rating 4 out of 5]

If you've ever been confused or frustrated by statistics, polls, and other numbers you've read about or heard on tv, this book should be on your shelf. Blastland, a journalist, and Andrew Dilnot, a fiscal math expert, explain in simple terms and with interesting and sometimes amusing examples how statistics and other numbers can be manipulated to mean just about anything the creator wants. The authors discuss polls, percentages, graphs and charts, census numbers, mortality and health stats, budget numbers and anything that comes out of government. Great reference and just an all-around good read.

[Danielle · Rating 4 out of 5]

The Numbers Game tells you about statistics in the news and politics and reveals the truth about the numbers that are thrown at you daily: numbers are plain and simple, but life is not. You will see what a jumbled mess it is to turn life into a nice round number that is (obviously) often wrong. You will be given a better understanding of what those numbers mean, and the tools to scrutinize them at your own will to get to the bottom of things! Because things are not often what they seem.
Enlightening; I recommend this book for everyone who has ever watched the news or picked up a paper or magazine. Which is pretty much everyone.

[Kater Cheek · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is a really cool book that interprets common statistical and information-gathering misunderstandings in a way that everyone can understand. Maybe that doesn't make it sound interesting, but trust me, it is.

This book will explain why if you get a positive result on a test that's 90% accurate, it doesn't mean you have a 90% chance of having that disease. It explains how and why people game the systems put into place to measure comparisons. It explains why two people can measure the same issue and come up with wildly different results.

It's short, it's easy to read, and it will make you smarter.

[Turi Becker · Rating 4 out of 5]

The Numbers Game is a fascinating book about statistics in the media and how they can deceive, confuse and hopefully enlighten. The authors, who host a BBC radio show on the same topic, do a wonderful job collecting examples of statistics and how they can be misleading. Unfortunately, now I trust numbers in the media even less than I did, which wasn't much. I'd highly recommend this to anyone who reads or hears statistics in the media, which is just about everyone.

[Tracy · Rating 4 out of 5]

I took way too long reading this book--almost a year! it really is much better than that--very entertaining in describing how important it is to think about the numbers we hear in the media and elsewhere. Great at breaking down the big numbers and making statistics understandable and useful for everyday life. I'm not great at translating from British in head automatically so a lot of things i have to read twice which is probably what took so long :) Great book tho, I recommend it!

[David · Rating 3 out of 5]

Not a bad book but most of the questions asked and answered were pretty obvious. That being said, it was nice to see someone make the answers available in an accessible and coherent manner. Anyone who trusts or doesn't trust statistics should read this book...it'll help both of you think and argue statistics intelligently. Worth the time...but not earth shattering in its presentation, conclusions, or ideology.

[BC · Rating 4 out of 5]

I really enjoyed this book. As a humanities student without much math background, I found this book accessible and easy to read. It deals with how people pervert math and statistics in order to exaggerate claims, sell something, and sow fear. Mathematical literacy seems to be on the decline, and this book does its part to remedy that situation.

[Wendy Roberts · Rating 4 out of 5]

So many great new ways to interpret the numbers that are constantly being thrown at us. I really need to reread it to make it completely sink in. A great little book...made me realize how much we, as readers/listeners ingest without really thinking when it comes to gov't reports, media presentations, TV interviews etc.

[Adam Jacobson · Rating 3 out of 5]

I spend most of my life working with numbers and had read John Allen Paulos Innumeracy a number of years ago (which I am going to reread) so nothing in here was terribly new.
But it was a good review of how most of the world, politicians particularly, just don't get how number is general and statistics in particular operate.