Interview with Tim Harford, author of How to Make the World Add Up: Ten Rules for Thinking Differently About Numbers
Tim Harford, author of How to Make the World Add Up: Ten Rules for Thinking Differently About Numbers (U.S. Title: The Data Detective: Ten Easy Rules to Make Sense of Statistics), recommends an exciting selection of books! Before jumping into the interview, please check out Tim's book:
Review from Book Depository:
When was the last time you read a grand statement, accompanied by a large number, and wondered whether it could really be true? Statistics are vital in helping us tell stories - we see them in the papers, on social media, and we hear them used in everyday conversation - and yet we doubt them more than ever.
But numbers - in the right hands - have the power to change the world for the better. Contrary to popular belief, good statistics are not a trick, although they are a kind of magic. Good statistics are not smoke and mirrors; in fact, they help us see more clearly. Good statistics are like a telescope for an astronomer, a microscope for a bacteriologist, or an X-ray for a radiologist. If we are willing to let them, good statistics help us see things about the world around us and about ourselves - both large and small - that we would not be able to see in any other way.
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How to Make the World Add Up: Ten Rules for Thinking Differently About Numbers
In How to Make the World Add Up, Tim Harford draws on his experience as both an economist and presenter of the BBC's radio show 'More or Less'. He takes us deep into the world of disinformation and obfuscation, bad research and misplaced motivation to find those priceless jewels of data and analysis that make communicating with numbers worthwhile. Harford's characters range from the art forger who conned the Nazis to the stripper who fell in love with the most powerful congressman in Washington, to famous data detectives such as John Maynard Keynes, Daniel Kahneman and Florence Nightingale. He reveals how we can evaluate the claims that surround us with confidence, curiosity and a healthy level of scepticism.
Using ten simple rules for understanding numbers - plus one golden rule - this extraordinarily insightful book shows how if we keep our wits about us, thinking carefully about the way numbers are sourced and presented, we can look around us and see with crystal clarity how the world adds up.
(U.S. Title: The Data Detective: Ten Easy Rules to Make Sense of Statistics)
Buy On:
Easons €21.00
Book Depository €16.75
Waterstones £20.00
Wordery $28.00
Q. Do you have a favourite smart thinking book (and why that book)?
It feels invidious to choose just one - there are so many! Review from Book Depository:
Each year, the AI community convenes to administer the famous (and famously controversial) Turing test, pitting sophisticated software programs against humans to determine if a computer can "think." The machine that most often fools the judges wins the Most Human Computer Award. But there is also a prize, strange and intriguing, for the "Most Human Human."
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But let me single out The Most Human Human by Brian Christian, which is one of the most thought-provoking and enjoyable books I've ever read, yet which hasn't enjoyed the same scale of success as others I might recommend such as The Tipping Point or Thinking, Fast and Slow.
Christian's book is about the Turing test, how computers try to imitate human conversation - and most interestingly, what the strengths and weaknesses of computer conversation teach us about the art of conversation itself.
I love the book.
The Most Human Human: What Artificial Intelligence Teaches Us About Being Alive
Brian Christian--a young poet with degrees in computer science and philosophy--was chosen to participate in a recent competition. This playful, profound book is not only a testament to his efforts to be deemed more human than a computer, but also a rollicking exploration of what it means to be human in the first place.
Buy On:
Book Depository €12.45
Waterstones £9.99
Wordery $11.25
Q. What's the most recent smart thinking book you've read (and how would you rate it)?
Adam Grant's Think Again, which is terrific. Grant explores the science of changing minds - your own mind, the minds of other people, and even an entire group. He's funny and self-deprecating and a very charming writer, so you hardly notice how much rigorous research - and how much wisdom - he is conveying. Very highly rated.
Review From Book Depository:
Discover how rethinking can lead to excellence at work and wisdom in life.
Intelligence is usually seen as the ability to think and learn, but in a rapidly changing world it might matter more that we can rethink and unlearn.
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Think Again: The Power of Knowing What You Don't Know
Organizational psychologist Adam Grant is an expert on opening other people's minds-and our own. As Wharton's top-rated professor and the bestselling author of Originals and Give and Take, he tries to argue like he's right but listen like he's wrong.
Think Again invites us to let go of views that are no longer serving us well and prize mental flexibility, humility, and curiosity over foolish consistency. If knowledge is power, knowing what we don't know is wisdom.
Buy On:
Easons €21.00
Book Depository €27.78
Waterstones £20.00
Q. Do you have a favourite childhood book?
I was and still am a fan of high quality fantasy novels. I would single out Taran Wanderer by Lloyd Alexander. Highly rated but to my mind still underrated. Alexander takes themes that might seem over-used - such as an orphan's hope of having noble parentage - and produces something fresh, wise and sad out of them.
Review From Book Depository
The fourth novel in this classic high-fantasy series, which already enjoys cult status in America. A must-read for all fans of Lord of the Rings. Synopsis Assistant pig-keeper Taran's many adventures have seen him become a hero and fall in love with a princess, but he is yet to discover the truth about himself. Determined to prove himself worthy in the eyes of Princess Eilonwy, he sets off on a quest for knowledge of his birthright. Accompanied by his loyal friends, Taran meets three enchantresses of the Marshes of Morva, who send him to consult the mysterious Mirror of Llunet. With the help of the people of Prydain, he must learn the secret of the Mirror to find the truth about himself.
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Taran Wanderer
Buy On:
Book Depository €9.76
Waterstones £5.99
Wordery $13.91
Q. Do you prefer reading on paper, Kindle or listening to an audiobook?
I prefer paper, but ebooks are very good and convenient these days. Podcasts take up all the time I might use to listen to audiobooks.
Q. Do you have a favourite bookshop (and why that shop)?
Blackwells Bookshop on Broad Street, Oxford - it's absolutely huge and it is full of good books. They minimise the space given over to selling little trinkets to the tourists - impressive given the central Oxford location - and they would rather stock a large range of excellent books than pile high the cookbooks and celebrity biographies.
I also have a very soft spot for Kramers in Dupont Circle, Washington DC. The first bookshop I ever saw one of my own books in; more importantly, the selection in this small bookshop is impeccable.
Many thanks to Tim for recommending an exciting selection of books! Please don't forget to check out Tim's book How to Make the World Add Up: Ten Rules for Thinking Differently About Numbers (U.S. Title: The Data Detective: Ten Easy Rules to Make Sense of Statistics).
Daryl
Image Copyrights: Little, Brown Book Group (How To Make The World Add Up), Penguin Books Ltd (The Most Human Human), Ebury Publishing (Think Again), Usborne Publishing Ltd (Taran Wanderer).
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