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How long does it take to read Data Detective?

Tim Harford

Data Detective by Tim Harford takes about 5 hours 52 minutes to read at 250 words a minute.

About 5 hours 52 minutes

A weekend read

First published 2021. 320 pages, about 88,000 words.

12 days at 30 minutes a day

Estimate based on 275 words per page.

At other speeds

Slow, 150 words a minute 9 hours 47 minutes
Average, 250 words a minute 5 hours 52 minutes
Fast, 400 words a minute 3 hours 40 minutes

The page count is the median across 2 editions, so your copy may differ. How we calculate.

About the book

Today we think statistics are the enemy, numbers used to mislead and confuse us. That's a mistake, Tim Harford says in The Data Detective. We shouldn't be suspicious of statistics-we need to understand what they mean and how they can improve our lives: they are, at heart, human behavior seen through the prism of numbers and are often "the only way of grasping much of what is going on around us." If we can toss aside our fears and learn to approach them clearly-understanding how our own preconceptions lead us astray-statistics can point to ways we can live better and work smarter. As "perhaps the best popular economics writer in the world" (New Statesman), Tim Harford is an expert at taking complicated ideas and untangling them for millions of readers. In The Data Detective, he uses new research in science and psychology to set out ten strategies for using statistics to erase our biases and replace them with new ideas that use virtues like patience, curiosity, and good sense to better understand ourselves and the world. As a result, The Data Detective is a big-idea book about statistics and human behavior that is fresh, unexpected, and insightful.

Subjects: Statistics, Methodology, Social sciences, Statistical methods, Business, BUSINESS & ECONOMICS / Consumer Behavior

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