Math on Trial: How Numbers Get Used and Abused in the Courtroom

Math on Trial: How Numbers Get Used and Abused in the Courtroom

Math on Trial: How Numbers Get Used and Abused in the Courtroom

Math on Trial: How Numbers Get Used and Abused in the Courtroom

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Overview

In the wrong hands, math can be deadly. Even the simplest numbers can become powerful forces when manipulated by politicians or the media, but in the case of the law, your liberty — and your life — can depend on the right calculation.

In Math on Trial, mathematicians Leila Schneps and Coralie Colmez describe ten trials spanning from the nineteenth century to today, in which mathematical arguments were used — and disastrously misused — as evidence. They tell the stories of Sally Clark, who was accused of murdering her children by a doctor with a faulty sense of calculation; of nineteenth-century tycoon Hetty Green, whose dispute over her aunt's will became a signal case in the forensic use of mathematics; and of the case of Amanda Knox, in which a judge's misunderstanding of probability led him to discount critical evidence — which might have kept her in jail. Offering a fresh angle on cases from the nineteenth-century Dreyfus affair to the murder trial of Dutch nurse Lucia de Berk, Schneps and Colmez show how the improper application of mathematical concepts can mean the difference between walking free and life in prison.

A colorful narrative of mathematical abuse, Math on Trial blends courtroom drama, history, and math to show that legal expertise isn't't always enough to prove a person innocent.

Product Details

ISBN-13: 9780465032921
Publisher: Basic Books
Publication date: 03/12/2013
Pages: 272
Sales rank: 220,147
Product dimensions: 6.30(w) x 9.30(h) x 1.30(d)

About the Author

Leila Schneps studied mathematics at Harvard University and now holds a research position at the University of Paris, France. She has taught mathematics for more than thirty years.

Schneps's daughter, Coralie Colmez, graduated with a First from Cambridge University in 2009, and now lives in London where she teaches and writes about mathematics. They both belong to the Bayes in Law Research Consortium, an international team devoted to improving the use of probability and statistics in criminal trials.

Table of Contents

Introduction ix

Math Error Number 1 Multiplying Non-Independent Probabilities

The Case of Sally Clark: Motherhood Under Attack 1

Math Error Number 2 Unjustified Estimates

The Case of Janet Collins: Hairstyle Probability 23

Math Error Number 3 Trying to Get Something From Nothing

The Case of Joe Sneed: Absent from the Phone Book 39

Math Error Number 4 Double Experiment

The Case of Meredith Kercher: The Test That Wasn't Done 61

Math Error Number 5 The Birthday Problem

The Case of Diana Sylvester: Cold Hit Analysis 87

Math Error Number 6 Simpson's Paradox

The Berkeley Sex Bias Case: Discrimination Detection 107

Math Error Number 7 The Incredible Coincidence

The Case of Lucia de Berk: Carer or Killer? 121

Math Error Number 8 Underestimation

The Case of Charles Ponzi: American Dream, American Scheme 147

Math Error Number 9 Choosing A Wrong Model

The Case of Hetty Green: A Battle of Wills 167

Math Error Number 10 Mathematical Madness

The Dreyfus Affair: Spy or Scapegoat? 189

Conclusion 221

Sources 227

Credits 237

Index 239

What People are Saying About This

From the Publisher

Publishers Weekly
“An entertaining tour of courtroom calculations gone wrong…. The cases they describe are independently interesting, and the mathematical overlay makes them doubly so…. As the problems are unraveled and the correct analyses explained, readers will enjoy a satisfying sense of discovery. Schneps and Colmez write with lucidity and an infectious enthusiasm, making this an engaging and unique blend of true crime and mathematics.”

Kirkus Reviews
“Fill[ed] with wonderful accounts of frauds and forgeries involving the likes of Charles Ponzi, Hetty Green and Alfred Dreyfus….the authors’ analysis of the recent Amanda Knox case [is] particularly chilling…. [Math on Trial is] intrinsically fascinating in its depiction of the frailty of human judgments.”

Steven Strogatz, Professor of Mathematics, Cornell University, and author of The Joy of x
“Taut and gripping, Math on Trial just might establish a new genre, in which true crime story meets the best of popular science. Utterly absorbing from start to finish.”

Michael Kaplan and Ellen Kaplan, authors of Chances Are…: Adventures in Probability and Bozo Sapiens: Why to Err Is Human
“The originator of sociology, Auguste Comte, said that applying probability to moral questions was the scandal of mathematics. Math On Trial charts the ambivalent—occasionally disastrous—role that math has played in several classic and some recent legal cases. It vividly shows how the desire for ‘scientific’ certainty can lead even well-meaning courts to commit grave injustice. There ought to be a copy in every jury room.”

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