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Loading... The Norm chronicles : stories and numbers about danger and death (original 2013; edition 2014)by Michael Blastland, D. J. Spiegelhalter
Work InformationThe Norm Chronicles: Stories and Numbers About Danger and Death by Michael Blastland (2013)
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Sign up for LibraryThing to find out whether you'll like this book. No current Talk conversations about this book. I find reading non fiction slow and heavy, but some of the facts in this book were amazing, and the over arching message of how we measure risk and how much it is skewed by other moral / judgemental factors was very well done. Boggle at the huge decrease in maternal mortality over the past 100 years! Wonder if it really can be true that a couple of cigerettes (which I have internalised as Evil and Dangerous) can be the same risk as a pint or two, or a burger? And cry at the story of Ignaz Semmelweis, who worked out how to save so many lives, and got mocked and committed to a mental institution. I couldn't get through this book. I thought it would be a light-hearted, easy to read book. However, it proved to be very factual and was not at all an easy read. I suppose if you are really into comparing morbidities it would be interesting. However, if you are looking for an easy fun read, this is not the book for you. The message of this book are that quantifying the risks we face everyday is the smart way to approach life. Looking at the data, helps us to avoid falling prey to media induced paranoias. However, while I agree with both the message and the approach, I didn't really enjoy the stories looking at the 3 'personas' that begin each chapter. While the attempt to inject some narrative into a discussion of risk and probability is definitely welcome, I didn't find these to be well particularly compelling. Still, well worth reading as a primer on risk. Weakest of the books i've read recently ion this area. the pop idea of having 3 characters to represent 3 main attitudes to risk could be appealing, but just doesn't work. the anecdotes are confused and the characters, as they must be, are just stereotypes. i gave up reading those bits after a time. the rest of the book has plenty of intriguing factoids (e.g., 1 glass of wine a day will extend your life, but 2 a day will shorten it), but the discussion tends to get waffly and lacked a clear line. Tries to cover too much ground and fails, where N Silver succeeds so well. no reviews | add a review
A statistician and a journalist reveal the real story behind the statistics on risk, chance, and choice No library descriptions found. |
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Google Books — Loading... GenresMelvil Decimal System (DDC)363.1Social sciences Social problems and services; associations Other social problems and services Public safety programsLC ClassificationRatingAverage:
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Actually, the most dangerous time in a woman's life is childbirth (which somehow I never really considered as dangerous, but it still is, even in 2015). For men, it's those testosterone-drenched years of the 20's and early 30's. The first year of life is still dangerous. Doing drugs, driving drunk, unprotected sex within certain communities, also still is.
So this is a very interesting book to dip in and out of (if you liked Freakanomics you should like this book); I wouldn't necessarily recommend reading it cover-to-cover as I did as the statistics of each chapter do tend to glaze over after a while, but if you read a few chapters at a time in order of your own insecurities, you'll find it hard to put down. Twenty-seven chapters cover such topics as accidents, vaccinations, gambling, chance, transportation, infancy, extreme sports, crime, unemployment, money, surgery. All have their fascinating oddities. Yes, unemployment strikes more frequently than one realises because of the oddity of the way the statistics are kept--30,000 people lose their jobs; 30,000 are hired; the result is 0 change on the unemployment scale. Tell that to the 30,000 who wake up shocked to hear they are being laid off that day--obviously an underestimated risk. In the gambling chapter you learn that the least chance you have of winning is a big government lottery, a bit better is the race track, and even better is a roulette wheel (American with only one zero, as opposed to European wheels that have two zeros).
My only negative with this work was its approach using three fictional characters--Norm (described by the authors as "a fool if you like"), Kelvin ("an offensive slug") and Prudence ("a pain in the arse") used in little scenarios at the beginning of each chapter to set the stage. I could have done without them but they were inoffensive really, and the little insights I learned not only amused me but just may make me fear some possibilities a little less than I have in the past (like an asteroid hitting earth)...which would be just fine. ( )