The Tiger That Isn't: Seeing Through a World of Numbers - Softcover

Dilnot, Andrew; Blastland, Michael

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1861978391 ISBN 13: 9781861978394

Publisher: Profile Books, 2007

Synopsis

Numbers have become the all-powerful language of public argument. Too often, that power is abused and the numbers bamboozle. This book shows how to see straight through them - and how to seize the power for yourself. Public spending, health risks, environmental disasters, who is rich, who is poor, Aids or war deaths, pensions, teenage offenders, the best and worst schools and hospitals, immigration - life comes in numbers. The trick to seeing through them is strikingly simple. It is to apply something everyone has - the lessons of their own experience. Using vivid and everyday images and ideas, this book shows how close to hand insight and understanding can be, and how we can all use what is familiar to make sense of what is baffling. It is also a revelation - of how little the principles are understood even by many who claim to know better. This book is written by the team who created and present the hugely popular BBC Radio 4 series, More or Less.

About this title

Review

If every politician and journalist were required to read this engaging and eye-opening book before embarking on their career, we would live in a wiser, better-governed world. (Matthew Taylor, Chief Executive Royal Society of Arts)

How to use the knowledge we already possess to understand numbers and make sense of the world around us. (Mervyn King Governor of the Bank of England)

Statistics usually send people to sleep. This will wake them up again...' (Rory Bremner)

In this witty and fascinating book he explains to us laymen how to make sense of numbers and how we can avoid having the wool pulled over our eyes. Invaluable. (David Dimbleby)

This delightful book should be compulsory reading for everyone responsible for presenting data and for everyone who consumes it. (Sunday Telegraph)

About the Author

Michael Blastland was born in Glasgow. A journalist all his professional life, he started on weekly newspapers before moving to the BBC where he makes current affairs programmes for Radio 4, such as Analysis, More or Less and the historical series Why Did We Do That? He lives in Hertfordshire, often with his daughter Cait, less often and less quietly with his son Joe, when he's at home.

About this edition

• Publisher: Profile Books
• Publication date: 2007
• ISBN 10: 1861978391
• ISBN 13: 9781861978394
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 192