Astronomy 336: Week 3

Darrell Huff runs the gamut of every popularly used type of statistic, probes such things as the sample study, the tabulation method, the interview technique, or the way the results are derived from the figures, and points up the countless number of dodges which are used to full rather than to inform.

Merchants of Doubt tells the story of how a loose-knit group of high-level scientists and scientific advisers, with deep connections in politics and industry, ran effective campaigns to mislead the public and deny well-established scientific knowledge over four decades. The authors roll back the rug on this dark corner of the American scientific community, showing how ideology and corporate interests, aided by a too-compliant media, have skewed public understanding of some of the most pressing issues of our era.

It Ain't Necessarily So cuts through the miasma surrounding media reporting of scientific studies, surveys, and statistics. Whether the problem is bad science, media politics, or a simple lack of information or knowledge, this book gives news consumers the tools to penetrate the hype and dig out the facts.

An excellent critical analysis and scientific assessment of the nature and actual level of risk leading environmental health hazards pose to the public. Issues such as radiation from nuclear testing, radon in the home, and the connection between electromagnetic fields and cancer, environmental factors and asthma, pesticides and breast cancer and leukemia clusters around nuclear plants are discussed, and how scientists assess these risks is illuminated.

Logic Made Easy is filled with anecdotal histories detailing the often muddy relationship between language and logic, and invites readers to identify and ultimately remedy logical slips in everyday life. Even experienced logicians will be surprised by Deborah Bennett's ability to identify the illogical in everything from maddening street signs to tax forms that make April the cruelest month. The book guides readers through those hair-raising times when logic is at odds with common sense.

"Math and the Mona Lisa" illuminates Leonardo da Vinci's life and work to uncover the science and mathematics that underlie Leonardo's work, paying special attention to the proportions, patterns, shapes, and symmetries that scientists and mathematicians have also identified in nature. Following Leonardo's own unique model, Atalay searches for the internal dynamics of art and science, revealing to us the deep unity of the two cultures. He provides a broad overview of the development of science from the dawn of civilization to today's quantum mechanics.

Amir Aczel gives readers the tools to minimize, or maximize, chance's effect on their lives. Aczel explores probability theory and its daily, practical applications, while along the way relating stories of inveterate gamblers who also happen to be mathematical geniuses. With the clarity of the statistician he once was, Aczel analyzes what is commonly known as luck. Alongside chapters on "The Surprising Birthday Problem," "Coincidences," and "How to Make Great Decisions" are a history of probability theory and anecdotes of its daily applications.

Nuclear Fear is the first work to explore all the symbolism attached to nuclear bombs, and to civilian nuclear energy as well, employing the powerful tools of history as well as findings from psychology, sociology, and even anthropology. The story runs from the turn of the century to the present day, following the scientists and journalists, the filmmakers and novelists, the officials and politicians of many nations who shaped the way people think about nuclear devices.

Wheelan strips away the arcane and technical details and focuses on the underlying intuition that drives statistical analysis. He clarifies key concepts such as inference, correlation, and regression analysis, reveals how biased or careless parties can manipulate or misrepresent data, and shows us how brilliant and creative researchers are exploiting the valuable data from natural experiments to tackle thorny questions.

Does the number of children gunned down double each year? Does anorexia kill 150,000 young women annually? Do white males account for only a sixth of new workers? Startling statistics shape our thinking about social issues. But all too often, these numbers are wrong. This book is a lively guide to spotting bad statistics and learning to think critically about these influential numbers. Best bases his discussion on a wide assortment of intriguing contemporary issues that have garnered much recent media attention, including abortion, homelessness, teen suicide, and much more. Using examples, he unravels many fascinating examples of the use, misuse, and abuse of statistical information. In this book Best shows us exactly how and why bad statistics emerge, spread, and come to shape policy debates. He recommends specific ways to detect bad statistics, and shows how to think more critically about "stat wars," or disputes over social statistics among various experts.

The ability to estimate is an important skill in daily life. More and more leading businesses today use estimation questions in interviews to test applicants' abilities to think on their feet. Guesstimation enables anyone with basic math and science skills to estimate virtually anything--quickly--using plausible assumptions and elementary arithmetic. Weinstein and Adam present an eclectic array of estimation problems that range from devilishly simple to quite sophisticated and from serious real-world concerns to downright silly ones. The problems are marvelously diverse, yet the skills to solve them are the same. The authors show how easy it is to derive useful ballpark estimates by breaking complex problems into simpler, more manageable ones--and how there can be many paths to the right answer.

Göran Grimvall is determined to help mere mortals understand how scientists get to the kernel of perplexing problems. Entertaining and enlightening, his latest book uses examples from sports, literature, and nature--as well as from the varied worlds of science--to illustrate how scientists make sense of and explain the world around us. Grimvall's fun-to-read essays and easy-to-follow examples detail how order-of-magnitude estimation, extreme cases, dimensional analysis, and other modeling methods work. They also reveal how nonscientists absorb these concepts and use them at home, school, and work.

The Experts' Guide to 100 Things Everyone Should Know How to Do provides unparalleled insights into how to daily tasks them better - more resourcefully, more effectively, and more efficiently - in 100 brief how-to essays by 100 of the world's leading experts. Some of these experts are household names, others are industry leaders; all are at the very top of their professions. This book brings together the best of the best, offering the world's most valuable advice.

Brace yourself for more take-your-breath-away images from Outside's famed, back-page "Parting Shot" photo feature. Each of these seventy-one shots will surprise you, wow you, and make you chuckle if you don't laugh out loud. It's another zany, eye-popping collection that celebrates the pratfalls and bizarre coincidences of outdoor life--the comic circumstances of relatively tame mammals (us) spending more and more time closer and closer to wild animals.

A good part of science is distinguishing between useful crazy ideas and those that are just plain nutty. In this book, Robert Ehrlich evaluates nine seemingly far-out propositions culled from physics, biology, and social science. In the process, he demonstrates in easy-to-understand terms how to weigh an argument, judge someone's use of statistics, identify underlying assumptions, and ferret out secret agendas. His conclusions are sometimes surprising.

Which is more dangerous, a gun or a swimming pool? What do schoolteachers and sumo wrestlers have in common? Why do drug dealers still live with their moms? The authors show that economics is, at root, the study of incentives--how people get what they want, or need, especially when other people want or need the same thing. In this book, they set out to explore the hidden side of everything. If morality represents how we would like the world to work, then economics represents how it actually does work.

Identifies three major catalysts of the culture of fear - government, the media, and big pharma. This book shows how these fearmongers manipulate our most primitive instincts - often without our even realizing it. It shows us how to look behind the hype and hysteria, and inoculate ourselves against fear tactics.

We continually face new risks in our world. This essential family reference will help you understand worrisome risks so you can decide how to stay safe and how to keeps risks in perspective. Expert authors David Ropeik and George Gray include information on: 50 top hazards - your likelihood of exposure - the consequences - ways to reduce your risk. They cover topics such as: - cancer - biological weapons - indoor air pollution - pesticides - radiation.

In this first-ever popular introduction to maglev-- the use of magnetic forces to overcome gravity and friction--Livingston takes lay readers on a journey of discovery, from maglev nanotechnology to Chinese trains that travel at 250 mph without touching the tracks. He finds magic in fighting friction by fighting gravity.