May Contain Lies: How Stories, Statistics and Studies Exploit Our Biases - And What We Can Do About It

(Hardback)

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Description

How to understand our human biases to separate fact from fiction, identify misinformation when we see it and make smarter decisions. A ground-breaking book that reveals why our human biases affect the way we receive and interpret information Our lives are minefields of misinformation. Statistics, stories and studies lie to us on a daily basis. Not only this but, as Professor Alex Edmans reveals, our brains lie to us too. He argues that we need to acknowledge and understand the role that our own human biases play in interpreting and digesting the information that we consume. It's only when we do, that we can actively resist being manipulated, and make informed choices that improve our lives.

Reviews

A powerful and punchy explanation of why misinformation is a problem that affects us all - be that in finance, politics, media, business or anywhere else. Edmans offers clear ideas about how to counter this, not just in our own lives but also across society as a whole. Timely and very provocative! -- Gillian Tett * Editor-at-Large, Financial Times *
A masterpiece! A must-read book that is both a delight to consume and sure to improve the quality of your thinking -- Katy Milkman * Professor, The Wharton School, author of How to Change *
Mass disinformation and poor understanding of basic statistics are the hallmarks of our 'information age'. Alex Edmans book is the much-needed antidote -- Vaclav Smil * Author of How the World Really Works and Numbers Don't Lie *
Brilliantly researched and written [and] immensely practical in helping guide us through this thicket of (mis)information I am already drawing on its insights in my everyday decision-making -- Andy Haldane * former Chief Economist at the Bank of England *
A passionate and dispassionate call to truth and how to achieve it - in a world of growing disinformation in which truth and common ground are the casualties -- Will Hutton * President of the Academy of Social Sciences, author of The State Were In *
A fascinating account of how to navigate through lies and misleading statistics to arrive at a reasonable approximation of the truth. A valuable aid to make sense of our confusing world -- Raghuram G. Rajan * Professor at the University of Chicago, former Governor of the Reserve Bank of India and former governor of the Reserve Bank of India and Chief Economist of the International Monetary Fund *
A hard-hitting book with some great stories -- Andrew Gelman * Professor of Statistics and Political Science, Columbia University *

Author Bio

Alex Edmans is Professor of Finance at London Business School. His TED talk 'What to Trust in a Post-Truth World' has been viewed 2 million times. He has also spoken at Davos and Google. In 2013, he was awarded tenure at The Wharton School and in 2021, was named MBA Professor of the Year by Poets and Quants. Edmans writes regularly for the Wall Street Journal, Financial Times and Harvard Business Review. His first book Grow the Pie (Cambridge University Press) was a Financial Times Book of the Year.