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Counting: how we use numbers to decide what matters

By: Material type: TextTextPublication details: Liveright Publishing Corporation 2021 New YorkDescription: ix, 277p.:ill. Includes indexISBN:
  • 9781324091066
Subject(s): DDC classification:
  • 001.422 S8C6
Summary: 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. https://wwnorton.co.uk/books/9781324091066-counting-98f8bc23-3a2b-46dd-9eed-c6363119c301
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Item type Current library Item location Collection Shelving location Call number Status Date due Barcode
Books Vikram Sarabhai Library Rack 1-A / Slot 5 (0 Floor, West Wing) Non-fiction General Stacks 001.422 S8C6 (Browse shelf(Opens below)) Available 204848

Table of contents

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.

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.

https://wwnorton.co.uk/books/9781324091066-counting-98f8bc23-3a2b-46dd-9eed-c6363119c301

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