In her book “More than a Glitch: Confronting Race, Gender, and Ability in Tech,” Meredith Broussard explores how various tech fields, including AI, user-interface design, surveillance, and predictive coding, perpetuate social biases on the basis of race, gender, and ability. She covers topics such as face recognition software, predictive policing, predictive grading in education, and…
Category: book review
Review of ‘the Tyranny of Metrics’ by Jerry Z. Muller
Among the books I have recently borrowed from the library, Jerry Muller’s (2018) book, the Tyranny of Metrics, has been the one I’d like to purchase a copy of and keep at hand for future reference. Muller is a historian who has written books on Adam Smith, various aspects of capitalism, and the history of…
On ‘Weapons of Math Destruction’ (by Cathy O’Neil) Book Review
O’Neil’s book offers a wide-ranging and alarming critique of Big Data technology and profit- and efficiency-driven algorithms. The title and the central concept in the book, Weapons of Math Destruction (WMDs), refer to prediction models that inform decisions at large scale and damage the well-being of many people subjected to them. They include models that…
Thoughts on ‘Naked Statistics’ (by Charles Wheelan)
Let’s begin this post with a comment by Chris Schuck on my recent video about The Data Detective by Tim Harford. Chris wrote: Some of the books in this genre look really great, but I was also thinking about how these statistical/quant critical thinking analyses are often at their most effective when placed in the…
Thoughts on ‘Data Detective’ (by Tim Harford)
Tim Harford’s (2021) book, Data Detective: Ten Easy Rules to Make Sense of Statistics, isn’t really about statistical methods. It has a much broader scope, and it is less technical than book on methods. It deals with knowledge in general, our relationship with knowledge, and the factors that determine that relationship for individuals and collectives….