How many pizzas are consumed each year in the United States? How many words have you spoken in your life? How many different peoples names appear in the New York Times each year? How many watermelons would fit inside the U.S. Capital building? What is the volume of all the human blood in the world?
John Allen PaulosInnumeracy and pseudoscience are often associated, in part because of the ease with which mathematical certainty can be invoked, to bludgeon the innumerate into a dumb acquiescence.
John Allen PaulosIn listening to stories we tend to suspend disbelief in order to be entertained, whereas in evaluating statistics we generally have an opposite inclination to suspend belief in order not to be beguiled.
John Allen PaulosHow many pizzas are consumed each year in the United States? How many words have you spoken in your life? How many different peoples names appear in the New York Times each year? How many watermelons would fit inside the U.S. Capital building? What is the volume of all the human blood in the world?
John Allen Paulos