Who's Counting?: Uniting Numbers and Narratives with Stories from Pop Culture, Puzzles, Politics, and More

by John Allen Paulos

Overview

For decades, New York Times best-selling author John Allen Paulos has enlightened readers by showing how to make sense of the numbers and probabilities behind real-world events, political calculations, and everyday personal decisions. Who’s Counting? features dozens of his insightful essays—original writings on contemporary issues like the COVID-19 pandemic, online conspiracy theories, “fake news,” and climate change, as well as a selection of enduring columns from his popular ABC News column of the same name.

With an abiding respect for reason, a penchant for puzzles with societal implications, and a disarming sense of humor, Paulos does in this collection what he’s famous for: clarifies mathematical ideas for everyone and shows how they play a role in government, media, popular culture, and life. He argues that if we can’t critically interpret numbers and statistics, we lose one of our most basic and reliable guides to reality.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781633888135
Publisher:	Globe Pequot Publishing
Publication date:	09/15/2022
Sold by:	SIMON & SCHUSTER
Format:	eBook
Pages:	232
File size:	656 KB

About the Author

John Allen Paulos is an extensively praisedauthor, popular public speaker, and former monthly columnist for ABCNews.com, the Scientific American, and the Guardian. Professor of math at Temple University in Philadelphia, he earned his Ph.D. in the subject from the University of Wisconsin.

He is the author, most recently, of A Numerate Life, as well as New York Times-bestseller Innumeracy, among many others. His papers on probability, logic, and the philosophy of science have appeared in numerous academic journals and his articles have appeared in the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, Forbes, the Nation, Discover, the American Scholar, and the London Review of Books. Paulos and has an extensive web and media presence, especially on Twitter @johnallenpaulos.

Table of Contents

Introduction xi

Chapter 1 Puzzles as a Prelude 1

The Monty Hall Puzzle: Variants of It and Its Connection to a COVID-19 Precaution 3

Wanna Be President? Pass This Test 7

Now Featuring e: Pi Has Long Been in the Spotlight. What about e? 11

Put on Your Hats and Codes: A Hat Puzzle and Error-Correcting Codes 14

Scaling Up Is So Very Hard to Do 17

Scaling in Biology, Metabolic Rates, and a Puzzle about Evolutionary Time 19

Five or Six Reasons Why Parity Puzzles Are Fun 22

Course Loads: Average Paradoxes That Went to College 25

Parrando's Paradox: Losing plus Losing Equals Winning 29

Chapter 2 A Bit of Probability 33

Probability and Independent Events: A Mini-Tutorial 35

Collecting a Complete Set: Baseball Cards, Disease, and Denial of Service 39

Probability and Hitting Streaks: Does DiMaggio's Deserve an Asterisk? 41

How Many Ways: From Social Distancing to an Alternative Solution to the Birthday Problem 44

Conditional Probability (Because We Usually Know Things) and the Prosecutor's Fallacy 47

Four Times the Odds of Conviction Not Four Times as Likely and Other Distinctions 48

Randonauts and Coincidences, Fun and Nonsense 51

Calculating the Probability of Picking the Wrong Suspect 54

COVID-19: False Positives, Fatality Rates, and Base Rates 57

Future World: Privacy, Terrorists, and Pre-Perpetrators 62

Summer and Boys: A New, Very Counterintuitive Birthday Paradox 64

Chapter 3 Lies and Logic 67

Lying Brain Teasers: Politicians, Liars, and Mathematical Puzzles 69

Logical Liars, Paradoxical Politicians, and Smullyan's Stumper 72

Groucho Meets Russell 74

True If and Only If False in the Market and in Life 77

Oh No. Denials and Conditional Statements Often Counterproductive 79

The Ellsberg and St. Petersburg Paradoxes: Risks, Utility, and Our Desire for Certainty 81

Justifiably Believing That Something Is True Doesn't Mean You Know It 85

Prove This, Win $1,000,000! The Goldbach and Collate Conjectures and a Doable Puzzle 87

A Clever Card Trick and a Religious Hoax 90

Does the Declaration of Independence Guarantee Happiness? 93

Weird Science from the Hume and Bacon Institute 94

Chapter 4 Calculations and Miscalculations 97

From Dates and Y2K to People and PY2K: A Tale of Two Numbers 99

Apophenia and Spherical Cows: Clots and Coincidences 102

COVID, Calculus, and the Curve 104

Hoarding Medicines to Wearing Masks: Sociology, Public Health, and the Prisoner's Dilemma 106

Of Ants, Butterflies, and Economic Whimsy 109

There's Nothing Wrong with Fuzzy Math 112

Predicting Success? SAT Scores and College Grades and the Other SAT, the Soccer Assessment Test 115

Be Careful What You Measure and Try to Achieve-You Might Succeed 118

Sexonomics: Prostitutes' Incomes, a Nonmoralistic Account 121

Sex, Lies, and Statistics: Some Musings 123

Reductio: Abortion through the Looking Glass 126

Misunderstandings: Jesus' Genealogical Descendants, Sexual Predators, and Home Run Records 129

Chapter 5 Partisanship in Politics 133

Trump: Outrage Fatigue, Denial-of-Service Attacks, and Brandolini's Law of Refutation 134

Wolf's Dilemma and Extreme Lockstep Political Partisanship 136

Through a Mathnifying Glass Darkly 138

Ranked Choice Voting: More Welcoming to Moderate and Less Conducive to Extreme Candidates 140

Ties and Coin Flips: From Butterfly Ballots to Butterfly Effects 143

Voting Blocs: Red States, Blue States, and a Model for Thoughtless Voting 145

The Internet, Conspiracy Theories, and Cognitive Foibles, Including the Conjunction Fallacy 147

After 9-11: Mindlessly Searching for Numerological Meaning in the Midst of Tragedy 150

Chapter 6 Religious Dogmatism 153

Naturally Evolving Order and Probability versus the Claims of Intelligent Design 154

On the Quasi Apotheosis of Mathematical Ideas, Two Accounts-One Silly, the Other Serious 158

Holy Cow or Bull? ELSes: It Would Be Astonishing If One Didn't Find Hidden Messages in the Bible 161

Edgar Cayce: An American Prophet-Yeah, Right 165

Medieval Blasphemy Law just Passed in Modern Ireland 167

Ramsey Theory and the Profound Idea of Order for Free 170

Chaitin on Complexity, Randomness, and Inevitable Incompleteness 174

My Dreamy Instant Message Exchange with God(dess) 177

Chapter 7 Mathematically Flavored Books 181

Metaphors-R-Us and the Origin of Mathematical Concepts 182

Mathematics and Narrative: A Multifaceted Relationship 184

Fractal Find: Monk Discovered Mathematical Formula 700 Years Earlier Than Previously Thought 187

The Mathematical Brain: We All Have an Innate Sense of Numbers and Magnitudes 189

Infinity and Eternity: A Novelist's Math, a Physicist's Drama 192

Stephen Gould's Use of Math Clarifies His Insights on Baseball, Bacteria, and IQ 194

Nudging: How to Get People to Do the Right Thing-Maybe 197

Wolframs New Kind of Science: Simple Rules Can Generate All the Complexity We See 200

Penrose's Road to Reality: A Behemoth on Modern Math and Physics-Reader Caution Advised 202

Is the Sky Falling? And if So, When? A Probabilistic Doomsday Argument 206

Postscript 209

Editorial Reviews

“Math illiteracy breeds warped understandings of the world that ultimately jeopardize the progress of civilization. Math professor John Allen Paulos wrote Who’s Counting? as an entertaining, relevant, and potent antidote to this societal blight.” – Neil deGrasse Tyson, Astrophysicist, American Museum of Natural History

“Who’s Counting? is an astonishing book, for it combines two things that aren't often found together: analytical rigor and fun. You don't have to be a math nerd to appreciate the fluid, easy explanations of everyday innumerate reasoning, but I guarantee that this book will make you feel smarter. Who’s Counting? is structured to enable the reader to dip in and out, biting each chocolate to see what one likes, but I encourage you to do what I did and just gorge yourself. It all tastes good.” – Lee McIntyre, author of How to Talk to a Science Denier

“What better than a mathematician sharing the intrigue of math with us all, and, at the same time, protecting us from the data manipulation and fake news that is threatening our democracy? Who’s Counting? is a must-read for all who want to wear mathematical armor against the war on truth.” – Jo Boaler, Nominelli-Olivier Professor of Education (Mathematics) at Stanford University, co-founder of youcubed.org, and author of Limitless Mind

"I love Paulos's writing. Within the ephemeral specifics of news, he finds the enduring logic of mathematics. Who’s Counting? is a glimpse of a more numerate world – and oh how I wish we lived there!" – Ben Orlin, author of Math with Bad Drawings

“Who’s Counting? would not only make a super present for the math-minded folks in your family (or for yourself), it also provides a rich resource for teachers to dive into for great ideas to spice up their classes.”

— Keith Devlin, Stanford University (Emeritus) mathematician and author

“We too often pigeonhole ourselves as ‘number’ or ‘narrative’ people. But Paulos breaks down that artificial division. With Who’s Counting? skill at crafting numerate narratives is a superpower within our grasp.” – Philip E. Tetlock, author of Superforecasting

“John Allen Paulos yet again defends logic and crusades against the problem of innumeracy with good humor and plain language. Using examples ranging from math puzzles to controversial cultural issues, this engaging book reminds us that citizens in a democracy must understand the facts and figures that swirl about them every day.” – Tom Nichols, author of The Death of Expertise

From the Publisher