The Tyranny of Numbers: Why counting Can't Make Us Happy

Boyle, David

ISBN 10: 0002571579 / ISBN 13: 9780002571579

Published by HarperCollins, 2001

About this Item

Used but good condition, clean, lightly read pages, but some shelf wear on cover and light tanning to pages Shipped from the UK within 2 business days of order being placed.

Seller Inventory # mon0000099279

Bibliographic Details

• Title: The Tyranny of Numbers: Why counting Can't Make Us Happy
• Publisher: HarperCollins
• Publication Date: 2001
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0002571579
• ISBN 13: 9780002571579
• Binding: Hardcover
• Condition: Good
• Dust Jacket Condition: Includes dust jacket.

About this title

Synopsis

Never before have we attempted to measure as much as we do today. Why are we so obsessed with numbers? What can they really tell us?

Too often we try to quantify what can’t actually be measured. We count people, but not individuals. We count exam results rather than intelligence, benefit claimants instead of poverty. The government has set itself 10,000 new targets. Politicians pack their speeches with skewed statistics: crime rates are either rising or falling depending on who is doing the counting.

We are in a world in which everything designed only to be measured. If it can’t be measured it can be ignored.

But the big problem is what numbers don’t tell you. They won’t interpret. They won’t inspire, and they won’t tell you precisely what causes what.

In this passionately argued and thought-provoking book, David Boyle examines our obsession with numbers. He reminds us of the danger of taking numbers so seriously at the expense of what is non-measurable, non-calculable: intuition, creativity, imagination, happiness…

Counting is a vital human skill. Yardsticks are a vital tool. As long as we remember how limiting they are if we cling to them too closely.

Americans who claim to have been abducted by aliens = 3.7 million

Average time spent by British people in traffic jams every year = 11 days

Number of Americans shot by children under six between 1983 and 1993 = 138, 490

About the Author

David Boyle is a journalist who has written about new ideas in economics for the past decade in newspapers and magazines all over the world. He is the author of Funny Money (HC Jan 99). Since 1988 he has been editor of New Economics magazine and he has also edited a range of other publications including Town & Country Planning and the Liberal Democrat News. David Boyle is a fellow of the RSA and a well-known figure in organisations such as the New Economics Foundation and Forum for the Future. He has been a Winston Churchill Fellow and is a regular broadcaster on the future of money, cities, economics and a range of other topics.