Greens Drive SUVs and Jogging Makes You Immortal
On “Unstatistics” and Their Perils
by Thomas Bauer, Gerd Gigerenzer, Walter Krämer, Katharina Schüller
Why Forecasts Are Always Wrong—the Power of Statistics Understanding how figures relate to reality poses a challenge in an age when we are confronted at every turn with fake news and clickbait telling us to be very afraid. Each day brings headlines to outdo those of the day before, yet often they are based on a false interpretation of the data. Gerd Gigerenzer (a psychologist), Katharina Schuller (an expert on data analysis), Thomas Bauer (an economist), and Walter Krämer (a statistician) have for some years now presented an “Unstatistic of the Month” as an indictment of a deficient understanding of figures, risk, and probability. Drawing on new and shocking examples, the four authors explain how we can recognize nonsense, contextualize forecasts, tell correlation from causation, and generally make sense of an increasingly complex world. It’s not just fun—it’s more important than ever. • More relevant than ever: the power of statistics in the age of fake news • An entertaining exploration of and remedy for statistical illiteracy