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"This is an important book, full of relevant examples and worrying case histories. By the end of it, the reader has been presented with a powerful set of tools for understanding statistics...anyone who wants to take responsibly for their own medicalchoices should read it" - New Scientist
However much we crave certainty, we live in an uncertain world. But are we guilty of wildly exaggerating the chances of some unwanted event happening to us? Are ordinary people idiots when reasoning with risk?
Far too many of us, argues Gerd Gigerenzer, are hampered by our own innumeracy. Here, he shows us that our difficulties in thinking about numbers can easily be overcome.
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
15 of 15 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
Interesting but a bit repetitive,
By A Customer
This review is from: Reckoning with Risk: Learning to Live with Uncertainty (Paperback)
I picked up this book because it was short-listed for the Aventis science prize. It is an interesting book that aims to assist the reader in becoming literate in the sort of risk assessment statistics we encounter all the time e.g. 'this drug reduces your risk of heart disease over 10 years by 50%'. It focuses on understanding conditional probabilities, using natural frequencies to assess uncertainty and the difference between absolute and relative risks. Although it does help you to understand everyday statistics of this nature better, it only appears to make about 3 points throughout the entire book. Most of the chapters just recycle the same ideas using various, mainly medical, examples. A punchy 20 page book would have been just as informative, less repetitive and thus more interesting and effective.
8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
An essential contribution to public education,
By Miland Joshi (Birmingham, UK) - See all my reviews
This review is from: Reckoning with Risk: Learning to Live with Uncertainty (Paperback)
I bought this book to while away time on a plane journey to the USA on holiday, and liked it so much that when I was asked to give an informal introductory Stats talk to a group of doctors in New York, I recommended it to them and worked through the example in Fig 4-2.
The book does a very good job of explaining Franklin's Law (nothing is certain except death and taxes), illustrating it with important problems like HIV tests and DNA testing. The idea that even DNA tests are not infallible will come as news to some! It also discusses cost-benefit issues in diagnostic tests and the way to explain risk in a way that is not misleading, specifically emphasising the value of ARR and NNT over RR reduction. All in all, the book seems to me an essential contribution to public education, especially for doctors and lawyers. Most highly recommended.
5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
Teach yourself how to avoid being confused by medical stats,
By
This review is from: Reckoning with Risk: Learning to Live with Uncertainty (Paperback)
This book takes a simple premise - that ordinary people, even scientists and doctors - are frequently confused by statistics. The author shows how it is possible to reduce this confusion by presenting the statistics in a different format. In particular, the book concentrates on medical statistics, dispelling a number of myths about the effectiveness of certain treatments and the risk of certain diseases.In fact, the treatment of the topic is repetitive. Each chapter tends to prove the same thing, without offering any new insights. Although a few revelations about the number of incidences of some diseases (including HIV and breast cancer) are interesting, there is a risk that some readers could use these to justify taking (or not taking) treatment without really understanding the issues involved - precisely what the author is striving to avoid. The most interesting chapter of all is the one on games, which offers potentially hours of endless fun for the reader, who can use the techniques described therein to win money off colleagues!
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