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This is the book that made "innumeracy" a household word, at least in some
households. Paulos admits that "at least part of the motivation for any book
is anger, and this book is no exception. I'm distressed by a society which
depends so completely on mathematics and science and yet seems to indifferent
to the innumeracy and scientific illiteracy of so many of its citizens."

But that is not all that drives him. The difference between our pretensions
and reality is absurd and humorous, and the numerate can see this better than
those who don't speak math. "I think there's something of the divine in these
feelings of our absurdity, and they should be cherished, not avoided."

Paulos is not entirely successful at balancing anger and absurdity, but he
tries. His diatribes against astrology, bad math education, Freud, and willful
ignorance are leavened with jokes, mathematical or the sort (he claims) favored
by the numerate.

It remains to be seen if Innumeracy will indeed be able, as Hofstadter hoped,
to "help launch a revolution in math education that would do for innumeracy
what Sabin and Salk did for polio"--but many of the improvements Paulos
suggested have come to pass within 10 years. Only time will tell if the
generation raised on these new principles is more resistant to innumeracy -
and need only worry about being incomputable. -Mary Ellen Curtin

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