Think in Numbers

About this book

A headline says a drug doubles your risk of something frightening, and you have no way to tell whether to worry. Think in Numbers is a friendly, hands-on course in everyday statistics for adults with no math background, built on one habit: turn percentages into counts of people, such as 30 out of 1,000. You will learn to separate relative from absolute risk, use base rates to read a positive test result, notice when an average describes no one, see what a margin of error leaves out, check a study in a minute and read p-values without being fooled. Later chapters cover regression to the mean, survivorship bias, expected value for lotteries and warranties, the rule of 72 and charts that mislead. Real cases such as the 1995 UK pill scare and the Sally Clark trial sit alongside 78 exercises with fully worked answers, and the book ends with a one-page claim checklist and ten practice headlines. The answers and glossary are in your library as a printable PDF. For anyone who wants to judge the numbers in the news for themselves. A phone calculator is all you need.

1. 1Printable worksheets & templates (PDF)All appendices of the book as a print-ready PDF.547 KB Buyers only

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