The Hidden Half: How the World Conceals its Secrets

Description

'Fascinating and provocative. Blastland is one of the most original thinkers around.' - Tim Harford, bestselling author of The Undercover Economist Why does one smoker die of lung cancer but another live to 100? The answer is 'The Hidden Half' - those random, unknowable variables that mess up our attempts to comprehend the world. We humans are very clever creatures - but we're idiots about how clever we really are. In this entertaining and ingenious book, Blastland reveals how in our quest to make the world more understandable, we lose sight of how unexplainable it often is. The result - from GDP figures to medicine - is that experts know a lot less than they think. Filled with compelling stories from economics, genetics, business, and science, The Hidden Half is a warning that an explanation which works in one arena may not work in another. Entertaining and provocative, it will change how you view the world.

Michael Blastland is a writer and broadcaster. He was the originator and first producer of BBC Radio 4's More or Less, Britain's most authoritative guide to numbers and evidence in public argument. He is the bestselling author of The Tiger That Isn't: Seeing Through a World of Numbers, a book about numbers and how to interpret them, which he co-authored with Andrew Dilnot. He also wrote The Norm Chronicles, co-authored with Professor David Spiegelhalter.

If every politician and journalist were required to read this engaging and eye opening book before embarking on their career, we would live in a wiser, better, governed world. * Matthew Taylor, Chief Executive, Royal Society of Arts on The Tiger That Isn't * A very funny book...this is one of those maths books that claims to be self-help, and on the evidence presented here, we are in dire need of it... * Daily Telegraph on The Tiger That Isn't * This very elegant book constantly sparks "Aha!" moments. * Guardian on The Tiger That Isn't *