A Mathematician Reads the Newspaper
by John Allen Paulos
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Book Summary Information
Author: John Allen PaulosEdition: Paperback
Published: 1997-09-26
ISBN: 038548254X
Number of pages: 224
Publisher: Anchor
Book Reviews of A Mathematician Reads the Newspaper
Book Review: When did you last read the Newspaper?
Summary: 3 Stars
"Don't believe everything you read in the papers" - more or less sums up what John Allen Paulos says in this Mathematician's eye-view of the printed news. But I would take that caveat a step further - especially in the light of today's news media: "Don't believe what you hear or see either!" Mainstream media it seems, is way to easy to manipulate, subjugate and otherwise coerce into only telling stories which the powers-that-be want the people to hear. Who decides what is written about? Who decides what ends up on television? This book was written at a time when the Internet was not quite the ubiquitous source of information it is today. Heck, in 1995 - even to someone like me, the word "Amazon" still conjured up the image of a lush, steamy rainforest somewhere in South America. In this light, the book represents a sort of snapshot of history in the days when people still had a modicum of respect for print on pulp from (possibly) rainforest trees, delivered every morning to their doorsteps. Strangely enough, this book may even serve as an epitaph to the Newspaper itself.
The book is actually structured like a regular newspaper, however with insightful (if a little mathematical) criticism by the author himself. You won't need a degree to understand what he is saying, however you will require some basic (High School level) knowledge of Statistics and Probability. John A.Paulos is a Ph.D. in Mathematical Logic - and thus he frames most of his arguments in an Aristotelian fashion, avoiding the cryptographic symbolism which pollutes (or, clarifies?) modern day mathematics. In short, you can read this book without a pencil and paper. What makes the book delightful however, is the author's ever-present sense of humor (which I suspect is a little funnier to those with some mathematical background themselves!)
The only problem I have with this book is the subject matter itself. I do believe that eventually, newspapers will go the way of the dinosaur. And maybe in another 65 million years or so, sapient beings will wonder at how strangely attached our minds were to the woody pulp of Amazonian trees.
Summary of A Mathematician Reads the Newspaper
In this book the author of Innumeracy : Mathematical Illiteracy and Its Consequences reveals the hidden mathematical angles in countless media stories. His real life perspective on the statistics we rely on and how they can mislead is for anyone interested in gaining a more accurate view of their world. The book is written with a humorous and knowledgeable style that makes it great reading.With the same user-friendly, quirky, and perceptive approach that made Innumeracy a bestseller, John Allen Paulos travels though the pages of the daily newspaper showing how math and numbers are a key element in many of the articles we read every day.??From the Senate, SATs, and sex, to crime, celebrities, and cults, he takes stories that may not seem to involve mathematics at all and demonstrates how a lack of mathematical knowledge can hinder our understanding of them.
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