About this item
An Economist Best Book of the Year. From our "greatest living statistical communicator" (Tim Harford) comes an invaluable, data-driven guide for understanding -- and learning to embrace -- risk and uncertainty in our daily lives.How dangerous is our diet? How much of sports falls into the realm of luck? When authorities categorize a given event as "highly likely" -- how likely is that, really? Whether we're trying to decide if the benefits of a new medication are worth the chance of side effects or if artificial intelligence truly threatens humanity, our lives are riddled with uncertainties both everyday and existential -- yet it can be difficult to know how to properly weigh all those unknowns. Luckily for us, renowned statistician David Spiegelhalter has spent his career dissecting data to resolve the apparently random and decode the many decisions we face with imperfect information.
About the Author
Sir David Spiegelhalter has been Winton Professor of the Public Understanding of Risk at the University of Cambridge since October 2007. His background is in medical statistics, with an emphasis on Bayesian methods: his MRC team developed the BUGS software which has become the primary platform for applying modern Bayesian analysis using simulation technology. He has worked on clinical trials and drug safety and consulted and taught in a number of pharmaceutical companies, and also collaborates on developing methods for health technology assessment applicable to organisations such as NICE. His interest in performance monitoring led to his being asked to lead the statistical team in the Bristol Royal Infirmary Inquiry, and he also gave evidence to the Shipman Inquiry.
