The tyranny of numbers : mismeasurement and misrule
Author(s)
Bibliographic Information
The tyranny of numbers : mismeasurement and misrule
AEI Press, 1995
- : pbk
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Note
Includes bibliographical references (p. 271-290) and index
Description and Table of Contents
- Volume
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ISBN 9780844737638
Description
Throughout the world, numbers are increasingly used to guide acts of government - but not always for the better. In this volume, the author examines the "facts and figures" that have led to measures unhelpful or injurious to their intended beneficiaries. "The Tyranny of Numbers" offers a look at problems such as world hunger, the population explosion, the Third World debt crisis, and the poverty in South Africa, in which misdiagnoses have driven action. In America, the author argues, antipoverty programmes proceed without an understanding of what the data actually show about living standards and child health. And our surprise at the collapse of communism in Eastern Europe and the crisis in the USSR may betray an equal misunderstanding of data that revealed the weakness in those systems.
- Volume
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: pbk ISBN 9780844737645
Description
In this wide-ranging study, Nicholas Eberstadt demonstrates that some of the most basic of today's domestic and foreign policies have been buttressed or justified by what turns out to be misanalysis or misuse of available facts and figures. The Tyranny of Numbers not only warns about the ways the statistics are being misused in government policy in the United States and abroad but explains how this process can end up injuring vulnerable groups or distorting the workings of the democratic system.
by "Nielsen BookData"
