More Damned Lies and Statistics
Summary
The feel-good place to buy books
More Damned Lies and Statistics by Joel Best
Demystifies statistical measures by explaining in straightforward prose how decisions are made about what to count and what not to count, what assumptions get made, and which figures are brought to our attention. This book identifies different sorts of numbers that shape how we think about public issues.
"Best provides us with another telling compendium of misleading statistics about a variety of topical issuesHis approach to explicating them is lucid, instructive, and quite engaging." - John Allen Paulos, author of Innumeracy; "Best has established himself as a brilliant observer of our national fads and scares. If he can deal with highly significant topics in such lucid and enjoyable prose, why can't other social scientists begin to match him?" - Philip Jenkins, author of The New Anti-Catholicism; "Joel Best continues to confront us with the delicious lunacy of statistical gaffes and fantasies. Whether discussing 'deaths from falling coconuts,' teenage bullying, or the likelihood of contracting breast cancer, Best teaches us to avoid the dangers of statistical illiteracy. As his cogent and comic examples from the media amply demonstrate, there is much teaching yet to be done. While we like to believe that it is our opponents who are fools with figures, this volume demonstrates that liberals, conservatives, libertarians, lawyers, physicians, and educators fall in the same numerical traps." - Gary Alan Fine, coauthor of Whispers on the Color Line"
Joel Best is Professor and Chair of Sociology and Criminal Justice at the University of Delaware. He is the author of Damned Lies and Statistics: Untangling Numbers from the Media, Politicians, and Activists (California, 2001), Random Violence: How We Talk about New Crimes and New Victims (California, 1999), and Threatened Children: Rhetoric and Concern about Child-Victims (1990).
| SKU | Unavailable |
| ISBN 13 | 9780520238305 |
| ISBN 10 | 0520238303 |
| Title | More Damned Lies and Statistics |
| Author | Joel Best |
| Condition | Unavailable |
| Binding Type | Hardback |
| Publisher | University of California Press |
| Year published | 2004-09-06 |
| Number of pages | 217 |
| Cover note | Book picture is for illustrative purposes only, actual binding, cover or edition may vary. |
| Note | Unavailable |