The Tyranny of Numbers

Download or read book The Tyranny of Numbers written by David Boyle and published by . This book was released on 2000 with total page 264 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Too often we try to quantify what can't actually be measured. We count people, but not individuals. We count exam results rather than intelligence, benefit claimants instead of poverty. The government has set itself 10,000 new targets. Politicians pack their speeches with skewed statistics: crime rates are either rising or falling depending on who is doing the counting. We are in a world in which everything is designed only to be measured. If it can't be measured it can be ignored. The problem is what numbers don't tell you - they won't interpret, they won't inspire, and they won't tell you precisely what causes what. In this book, David Boyle examines our obsession with numbers. He reminds us of the danger of taking numbers so seriously at the expense of what is non-measurable, non-calculable: intuition, creativity, imagination, and happiness.