Lawrence Public Library

Counting, how we use numbers to decide what matters, Deborah Stone

eng

Includes bibliographical references (pages 247-274) and index

illustrations

index present

non fiction

Counting

bibliography

1137844930

Deborah Stone

how we use numbers to decide what matters

"The best-selling author of Policy Paradox, a classic on politics, delivers a pathbreaking work on the simple act of counting. Early in her extraordinary career, Deborah Stone wrote Policy Paradox, a landmark work on politics. Now, in Counting, she revolutionizes how we approach numbers and shows how counting shapes the way we see the world. Most of us think of counting as a skill so basic that we see numbers as objective, indisputable facts. Not so, says Stone. In this playful-yet-probing work, Stone reveals the inescapable link between quantifying and classifying, and explains how counting determines almost every facet of our lives-from how we are evaluated at work to how our political opinions are polled to whether we get into college or even out of prison. But numbers, Stone insists, need not rule our lives. Especially in this age of big data, Stone's work is a pressing and spirited call to reclaim our authority over numbers, and to take responsibility for how we use them"--, Provided by publisher

Prologue: Of two minds -- There's no such thing as a raw number -- How a number comes to be -- How we know what a number means -- How numbers get their clout -- How counting changes hearts and minds -- The ethics of counting -- Epilogue: Counting goes viral