How to Read Numbers

A Guide to Statistics in the News (and Knowing When to Trust Them)

By: Tom Chivers, David Chivers

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Paperback | 30 August 2022 | Edition Number 1

At a Glance

Paperback
208 Pages

Dimensions(cm)
19.5 x 12.5 x 1.5

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Every day, most of us will read or watch something in the news that is based on statistics in some way. Sometimes it'll be obvious - 'X people develop cancer every year' - and sometimes less obvious - 'How smartphones destroyed a generation'. Statistics are an immensely powerful tool for understanding the world, but in the wrong hands they can be dangerous.

Introducing you to the common mistakes that journalists make and the tricks they sometimes deploy, HOW TO READ NUMBERS is a vital guide that will help you understand when and how to trust the numbers in the news - and, just as importantly, when not to.

About the Author

Tom Chivers is a science writer and author. He was awarded the Royal Statistical Society 'statistical excellence in journalism' award in 2018, and was highly commended for the same prize in 2017; he has also been shortlisted for the Association of British Science Writers award and a British Journalism Award in science writing, and won the American Psychological Society media award, all in 2017. His first book, The Rationalist's Guide To The Galaxy, was declared one of The Times' science books of 2019.

Industry Reviews

A charming, practical and insightful guide. You might not even notice how much you're learning - you'll be too busy having fun

Reading this book is strongly correlated with not looking stupid. Highly recommended

A vital plea to take statistics more seriously - the prose being as clear and elegant as the numbers

Wonderfully written - incredibly readable. It should be made compulsory reading for everyone before they leave school

An excellent guide to everyday statistics . . . the authors do a splendid job of stringing words together so smartly that even difficult concepts are explained and so understood with ease. [A] timely and lively book - THE TIMES

An erudite, enlightening guide to the numbers we read in the news - and why they are so often wrong. The authors make sense of dense material and offer engrossing insights into sampling bias, statistical significance and the dangers of believing the casual language used in newspapers - INDEPENDENT

[A] fascinating, easy-to-read explanation of how to interpret numbers in the news . . . their enlightening book provides us with the tools to spot when we're being led astray - DAILY MAIL

A great combination of important and accessible

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