Review: Weapons of Math Destruction: How Big Data Increases Inequality and Threatens Democracy

Weapons of Math Destruction: How Big Data Increases Inequality and Threatens Democracy by Cathy O'Neil
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

This is a powerful book in that it reveals the way we are all duped by data. I hope that the content is part of data and technology study programs because it truly matters. You will shake your head throughout and think: Wow. Numbers do not lie, but give those numbers to people and they lie like hell.

Data dupes all and it does it daily. Whether you are reading liberal news, conservative news, or middle-ground news....you can be 100% sure that there is some kind of misrepresentation or twisting done, either unwittingly or deliberately. Who among us, when learning of a friend's divorce, actually believes that there is only ONE side of the story? Why do we not bring this sensibility to the table when digesting content about any hot social justice issue. Why don't we automatically think "I bet there's another side to THIS story!"

False assumptions, bad data and lying numbers infect all. Like rain that falls on the just and unjust evenly, so do false impressions pushed by slanted data visualizations and biased studies fall upon the eyes of us all.

This book was very well-organized and well-written. I learned so much from it.

This author disparages certain studies from the outset and reveals the flawed assumptions and biased designs in such studies. Therefore, I think it is even more important when setting the record straight (which she does) - when telling us why the disparaged studies are poorly designed and why the results are biased - that the new and correct information be thoroughly supported with facts, references and numbers that are proven as true. I wanted more information on why and how the correct info can be counted upon as being completely clean.



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