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Written by 
- Format: Hardcover, 272 pages
- Publisher: Bantam
- On Sale: August 28, 2007
- Price: $26.00
- ISBN: 978-0-553-80540-6 (0-553-80540-1)
about this book
"In the past, one could get by on intuition and experience. Times have changed. Today, the name of the game is data. Ian Ayres shows us how and why in this groundbreaking book Super Crunchers. Not only is it fun to read, it just may change the way you think."
—Steven D. Levitt, co-author of Freakonomics
"Above all, the book is fun to read. It should pique interests in many quarters. In a better world, it would be required reading in high schools everywhere—presented by teachers who can grasp and appreciate the topic. One can dream."
—Peter Gordon on Peter Gordon's Blog
Why would a casino try and stop you from losing? How can a mathematical formula find your future spouse? Would you know if a statistical analysis blackballed you from a job you wanted?
Today, number crunching affects your life in ways you might never imagine. In this lively and groundbreaking new book, economist Ian Ayres shows how today's best and brightest organizations are analyzing massive databases at lightening speed to provide greater insights into human behavior. They are the Super Crunchers. From internet sites like Google and Amazon that know your tastes better than you do, to a physician's diagnosis and your child's education, to boardrooms and government agencies, this new breed of decision makers are calling the shots. And they are delivering staggeringly accurate results. How can a football coach evaluate a player without ever seeing him play? Want to know whether the price of an airline ticket will go up or down before you buy? How can a formula outpredict wine experts in determining the best vintages? Super crunchers have the answers. In this brave new world of equation versus expertise, Ayres shows us the benefits and risks, who loses and who wins, and how super crunching can be used to help, not manipulate us.
Gone are the days of solely relying on intuition to make decisions. No businessperson, consumer, or student who wants to stay ahead of the curve should make another keystroke without reading Super Crunchers.
Praise for Super Crunchers....
"A lively and yet rigorously careful account of the use of quantitative
methods for analysis and decision-making.... Both social scientists and
businessmen can profit from this book, while enjoying themselves in the
process."
—Dr. Kenneth Arrow, Nobel Prize winning economist and professor emeritus at Stanford University.
"Ayres offers superb, cutting-edge, current and future based insights relative to forming predictions and using statistical models....Not since Freakonomics have I found a more refreshing, interesting, and challenging read. The book is perfectly written for those who wish to gain unique insight into useful statistical models and mechanisms that will help revolutionize the way we think and make decisions, predictions, and projections, and for those who like fresh, evidenced-based methodologies toward intelligent decision making in both academic and nonacademic settings. In short, the book is going to be a fantastic read for any person who appreciates the power of numbers and the scientific approach toward decision making and understanding complex issues.”
—Darrell Crase, PhD, Professor Emeritus, The University of Memphis
“This is exactly the kind of collateral reading that all business students would benefit from in conjunction with their statistics courses. It demonstrates the pervasiveness of data mining in the competitive economic environment and should convince rising business leaders that this is a tool that they must pay attention to. Important message, easy reading.”
–Charles Hadlock, Trustee Professor, Bentley College
"Super Crunchers shows that data-driven decisionmaking is not just revolutionizing baseball and business; it's changing the way that education policy, health care reimbursements, even tax regulations are crafted. Super Crunching is truly reinventing government. Politicians love to tout policy proposals, but they rarely come back and tell you which ones succeeded and which ones failed. Data-driven policy making forces government to ask the bottom line question of 'What works.' That's an approach we can all support."
—John Podesta, President of the Center for American Progress
"Yale Law School professorand econometrician Ayres argues in this lively and enjoyable book that the recent creation of huge data sets allows knowledgeable individuals to make previously impossible predictions....Ayres skillfully demonstrates the importance that statistical literacy can play in our lives, especially now that technology permits it to occur on a scale never before imagined."
—Publishers Weekly
"Ian Ayres [is] a law-and-economics guru."
—Chronicle of Higher Education
