July 10, 2015 Innumeracy Berenice Pond
Innumeracy: Mathematical Illiteracy and Its Consequences
The author did not like math when he was growing up, in fact, it was his worst subject. He felt
that too many people were like him and found an excuse to sweep aside their mathematical illiteracy,
therefore he felt the need to write a book and show the importance of mathematical statistics. He goes
on to show in the book examples of innumeracy that contains, psychics, stock fraud ,the chances of a
terrorist a*ack occurring, sports statistics, gender discrimination, astrology, extraterrestrial life,
psychotherapy, para-psychology, lo*ery statistics, fad diets and quack doctors, and probability of
acquiring STIs.
Chapter One, Examples and Principles starts o/ with the author doing just that, giving examples
of why statistics and probabilities are needed. It states from the seventeen Americans killed by terrorists
in 1985, there were 28 million Americans who traveled overseas that year which leaves one chance in
1.6 million of becoming a victim of terrorism. Compare that to the annual rates in the United States for
choking to death, one chance in 68,000; for dying in a bicycle crash, one chance in 75,000; for drowning,
one chance in 20,000; and for dying in a car crash, only one chance in 5,300. It goes on to tell us more
interesting statistics that most people don’t know or even take time to :nd out. For example, it tells us
the rate that human hair grows, approximately how many people die each day, and approximately how
many cigare*es are smoked each year in the United States. Central Park in New York has an area of 840
acres, or about 1.3 square miles. If walls were built around it, all the blood in the world would cover the
park to a depth of around under 20 feet. The Dead Sea on the Israel-Jordan border has an area of 390
square miles. If all the world’s blood were put into the Dead Sea, it would add only three-fourths of an
