Everydata : the misinformation hidden in the little data you consume every day : why your gas tank isn't empty, you're not better than average, and Africa is bigger than you think

Everydata The misinformation hidden in the little data you consume every day : why your gas tank isn't empty, you're not better than average, and Africa is bigger than you think

John H. Johnson

Book - 2016

"While everyone is talking about "big data," the truth is that understanding the "little data" (stock reports, newspaper headlines, weather forecasts, etc.) is what will help you make smarter decisions at work, at home, and in every aspect of your life. The average person consumes approximately 30 gigabytes of data every single day, but has no idea how to interpret it correctly. Everydata explains, through the eyes of an expert economist and statistician, how to correctly interpret all of the small bytes of data we consume in a day. Readers will become effective, skeptical consumers of everyday data. Everydata is filled with countless examples of people misinterpreting data - oftentimes with catastrophic results: Mi...llions of women avoid caffeine during pregnancy because they interpret correlation as causation The initial launch of HealthCare.gov failed in part because key decision-makers couldn't observe all of the data A baby food company was investigated by the Federal Trade Commission for cherry picking data Attorneys faced a $1 billion jury verdict because of outlier data The Space Shuttle Challenger exploded because the engineers were dealing with a limited sample set Hedge fund companies claim they can make smarter predictions - but the market data says otherwise Each chapter of Everydata highlights one commonly misunderstood data concept, using both real-world and hypothetical examples from a wide range of topics, including business, politics, advertising, law, engineering, retail, parenting, and more. Readers will get the answer to the question - "Now what?" - along with concrete ways they can use this information to immediately start making smarter decisions, today and every day. "--

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Subjects
Econometrics.
Consumer behavior.
Published
Brookline, MA : Bibliomotion [2016]
Language
English
Main Author
John H. Johnson (author)
Other Authors
Mike Gluck (author)
Physical Description
xiii, 206 pages : illustrations, maps ; 24 cm
Bibliography
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN
9781629561011
  • Foreword
  • Preface
  • 1. Data, Data, Everywhere: An Introduction to Everydata
  • 2. The Challenger Challenge: How Sampling Can Affect Results
  • 3. Red State Blues: Averages and Aggregates-A Closer Look at Summary Statistics
  • 4. Are You Smarter Than an iPhone-Using, Radiohead-Loving Republican?: Understanding Correlation Versus Causation
  • 5. In Statistics We Trust: Is What You're Seeing True?
  • 6. Shrinking Africa: Misrepresentation and Misinterpretation
  • 7. Spoonfed Data: When Cherry Picking Goes Bananas
  • 8. Predicting Disaster: Forecasting the Future
  • 9. It's a Jungle Out There: Putting It All Together
  • Glossary
  • Notes
  • Index
  • Acknowledgments
  • About the Author
Review by Publisher's Weekly Review

Though much has been written about the ways in which companies collect and use personal data, the topic of how average citizens use and process data on a daily basis is less widely understood. Statistician Johnson and writer Gluck address and begin to remedy this discrepancy with their overview of how information is rendered and represented, and how it should be interpreted. The authors cover many basic statistical concepts as they explain how easily data is manipulated and misinterpreted. Studies, for example, can suffer from methodological failures such as improper sampling, and information can be misleading when it is cherry-picked. This book points out these pitfalls and educates readers on how to navigate the increasingly dense information environment. The authors hit key points on the importance of information literacy today, but even as an overview, it jumps from topic to topic a little too quickly. Agent: Tris Coburn, Tristram C. Coburn Literary Management. (Apr.) © Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.

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