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Reckoning with Risk: Learning to Live with Uncertainty (Paperback)

by Gerd Gigerenzer (Author)
4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (8 customer reviews)
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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 medical choices should read it" - New Scientist


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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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Front Cover | Copyright | Table of Contents | Excerpt | Index | Back Cover
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11 of 11 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars Interesting but a bit repetitive, 20 Jun 2003
By A Customer
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.

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7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars An essential contribution to public education, 29 May 2003
By Miland Joshi (Birmingham, UK) - See all my reviews
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.
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5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars essential reading, 10 Jan 2003
This review is from: Reckoning with Risk: Learning to Live with Uncertainty (Paperback)
This book is the perfect antidote to the mistakes of reasoning we are all prone to, when faced with uncertainty and rare events. It offers itself as a way of turning ignorance into insight, and follows through on the offer.

What if you have a positive mammogram, or test positive for HIV? Do you know how likely it is that you have actually got breast cancer, or that you are indeed HIV positive? Most of us don't have the foggiest, yet this is the sort of information we all need desperately.

There is a simplification at the heart of the book - not all statistical information can be summarised effectively using natural frequencies - and the author is not a mathematician and gives no sign that he understands that this is a simplification. But often enough natural frequencies will do the trick, and you will find no better explanation of how to think than this book.

What can I say? Everyone should read it. That means you!

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Most Recent Customer Reviews

5.0 out of 5 stars Insights into turning data into understanding
This book is highly recommended for anyone who has to use numbers to communicate information or who tries to interpret numeric information to make informed judgements... Read more
Published 8 months ago by Steven Unwin

2.0 out of 5 stars very repetitive
I bought this because it was recommended in Ben Goldacre's Bad Science as a good book on research, irrationality and mathematics. Read more
Published 9 months ago by Russell

4.0 out of 5 stars The knack of statistics
Gerd Gigerenzer's main message is this: when it concerns statistics, better speak about frequencies than about percentages. Read more
Published 21 months ago by Christian Jongeneel

3.0 out of 5 stars Teach yourself how to avoid being confused by medical stats
This book takes a simple premise - that ordinary people, even scientists and doctors - are frequently confused by statistics. Read more
Published on 1 Sep 2003 by David Abbott

5.0 out of 5 stars Everyone should read this book
While I have some quibbles with the style and layout (the book essentially comes down to one point which is repeated several times), this is a book everyone should... Read more
Published on 11 Jul 2003

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