Calculated Risks: How To Know When Numbers Deceive You

Thank you for downloading this Simon & Schuster eBook. Join our mailing list and get updates on new releases, deals, bonus content and other great books from and Simon & Schuster. CLICK HERE TO SIGN UP or visit us online to sign up at eBookNews.SimonandSchuster.com CONTENTS ACKNOWLEDGMENTS PART I DARE TO KNOW 1. Uncertainty 2. The Illusion of Certainty 3. Innumeracy 4. Insight PART II UNDERSTANDING UNCERTAINTIES IN THE REAL WORLD 5. Breast Cancer Screening 6. (Un)Informed Consent 7. AIDS Counseling 8. Wife Battering 9. Experts on Trial 10. DNA Fingerprinting 11. Violent People PART III FROM INNUMERACY TO INSIGHT 12. How Innumeracy Can Be Exploited 13. Fun Problems 14. Teaching Clear Thinking GLOSSARY REFERENCES NOTES INDEX For my mother ACKNOWLEDGMENTS Books, like human beings, have a history. They are conceived in love and written with perspiration. My fondness for the topic of uncertainty and risk was inspired by Ian Hacking’s and Lorraine Daston’s writings on the ideas of chance, rationality, and statistical thinking. David M. Eddy’s work on medical diagnosis, and that of Lola L. Lopes on decision making and risk, have shown me how these ideas flourish and shape our present world. My interest in the way medical and legal experts think, and how one can offer them mind tools to better understand uncertainties, started with Ulrich Hoffrage, once my student and now my colleague and friend, whom I heartily thank for the fun of some ten years of joint research. This work has continued with Ralph Hertwig, Stephan Krauss, Steffi Kurzenhäuser, Sam Lindsey, Laura Martignon, and Peter Sedlmeier, as well as with other researchers at the Max Planck Institute for Human Development. Among the many people outside my research group who have shaped my thinking on the ideas presented in this book, I would like to thank Jonathan J. Koehler and John Monahan. Many dear friends and colleagues have read, commented on, and helped shape the many versions of this book manuscript: Michael Birnbaum, Valerie M. Chase, Kurt Danziger, Norbert Donner-Banzhoff, George Daston, Robert M. Hamm, Ulrich Hoffrage, Max Houck, Günther Jonitz, Gary Klein, Jonathan J. Koehler, Hans-Joachim Koubenec, Steffi Kurzenhäuser, Lola L. Lopes, John Monahan, Ingrid Mühlhauser, Marianne Müller-Brettl, R. D. Nelson, Mike Redmayne, Joan Richards, Paul Slovic, Oliver Vitouch, William Zangwill, and Maria Zumbeel. My special thanks go to Christine and Andy Thomson, one a lawyer and the other a psychiatrist, to whom I owe several of the case studies reported in this book. Valerie M. Chase has edited the entire book manuscript and much clarity is due to her insight. Donna Alexander helped me at all stages of the development of the book, including the footnotes and references; she was a wonderful and critical support. Hannes Gerhardt joined in the final stages, Wiebke Moller helped find literature, even in the most remote places and Dagmar Fecht cleared the decks, making writing even possible. Lorraine Daston, my beloved wife, gave me emotional and intellectual support during the four years I was gestating this book, and my daughter Thalia, always delightful and helpful, gave me valuable suggestions on improving the readability of the text. People are important, but so is the environment in which one works. I have had the good fortune in the past few years to profit from the splendid intellectual atmosphere and the resources of the Max Planck Society, for which I am thankful. PART I DARE TO KNOW . . . in this world there is nothing certain but death and taxes. Benjamin Franklin 1 UNCERTAINTY Susan’s Nightmare During a routine medical visit at a Virginia hospital in the mid-1990s, Susan, a 26-year-old single mother, was screened for HIV