Picturing the Uncertain World: How to Understand, Communicate, and Control Uncertainty through Graphical Display |  | Author: Howard Wainer
Publisher: Princeton University Press
List Price: $29.95
Buy New: $18.78
as of 11/21/2009 00:25 CST details
You Save: $11.17 (37%)
New (27) Used (8) from $18.78
Seller: ---superbookdeals
Rating:  3 reviews
Sales Rank: 44155
Media: Hardcover
Pages: 280
Number Of Items: 1
Shipping Weight (lbs): 1.5
Dimensions (in): 9.1 x 7.1 x 1.1
ISBN: 0691137595
Dewey Decimal Number: 003.54
EAN: 9780691137599
ASIN: 0691137595
Publication Date: April 26, 2009
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
| |
| Features:
|
| Similar Items:
| |
| Editorial Reviews:
Product Description
In his entertaining and informative book Graphic Discovery, Howard Wainer unlocked the power of graphical display to make complex problems clear. Now he's back with Picturing the Uncertain World, a book that explores how graphs can serve as maps to guide us when the information we have is ambiguous or incomplete. Using a visually diverse sampling of graphical display, from heartrending autobiographical displays of genocide in the Kovno ghetto to the "Pie Chart of Mystery" in a New Yorker cartoon, Wainer illustrates the many ways graphs can be used--and misused--as we try to make sense of an uncertain world. Picturing the Uncertain World takes readers on an extraordinary graphical adventure, revealing how the visual communication of data offers answers to vexing questions yet also highlights the measure of uncertainty in almost everything we do. Are cancer rates higher or lower in rural communities? How can you know how much money to sock away for retirement when you don't know when you'll die? And where exactly did nineteenth-century novelists get their ideas? These are some of the fascinating questions Wainer invites readers to consider. Along the way he traces the origins and development of graphical display, from William Playfair, who pioneered the use of graphs in the eighteenth century, to instances today where the public has been misled through poorly designed graphs. We live in a world full of uncertainty, yet it is within our grasp to take its measure. Read Picturing the Uncertain World and learn how.
|
| Customer Reviews:
Great art and wit October 31, 2009
I Teach Typing (Stanford, CA USA)
This book is filled with superb graphics and insights into the study of variability and the graphical methods that can be used to summarize data. It is written in many short chapters, each of which is based on one of the authors famous papers, that can be easily digested in about 5 or 10 minutes. While a few places Wainer goes off on brief tangents about the math (that distract from the flow and are hard to follow because the lack of detail) the book flows remarkably well especially given its fractured origins.
The graphics (especially the color plates) are a well rendered collection of great historical value. Graphics by Playfair, Florence Nightingale, Galton, Minard and people tracking deaths in Nazi occupied Lithuania are all talked about in detail. Beyond the art, some of the strong points of the book include: insights into what goes wrong when people do not study variability, the dissection of good and bad graphics to point out what makes a good graphic good, and a great discussion about the graphics of changes over time and how easy it is to misinterpret them.
The down side of the book is that many of the graphics can be rendered fairly easily with modern analytic software (like SAS, S-Plus or R) but the author does not give links for the novice. If you want to combine this with a book that discusses how to make good scientific graphics (like the examples in this book) take a look at the masterpieces by Cleveland Visualizing Data and/or The Elements of Graphing Data.
Required Reading for Policy Wonks June 7, 2009
Sam L. Savage (Palo Alto, CA USA)
4 out of 4 found this review helpful
One can argue that the financial turmoil of 2008 resulted from poor decision making in the face of uncertainty. Howard Wainer is a leader in applying a more visual intuitive approach to such issues. His explanation of well meaning but statistically challenged public programs, which have wasted billions of dollars will make you want to throw stuff. This book should be required reading by people entrusted to make policy. I learned a lot from it.
Howard Wainer does it again! May 23, 2009
Samuel J. Palmer (Jersey City, NJ USA)
5 out of 6 found this review helpful
From the moment you pick this book up, you will be entertained and enlightened in roughly equal measure. Wainer's writing will be clear to readers of any background, and he elucidates his subject matter with wit and poise. His insights into the tools we use to understand our world are frequently profound, but come clothed in modest good humor. In this book Wainer does for graphics what Feynman did for physics in his "Six Easy Pieces."
|
|
|
|
