Who's Counting?

For decades, New York Times best-selling author John Allen Paulos has enlightened readers by showing how to make sense of the numbers and probabilities behind real-world events, political calculations, and everyday personal decisions. Who’s Counting? features dozens of his insightful essays—original writings on contemporary issues like the COVID-19 pandemic, online conspiracy theories, “fake news,” and climate change, as well as a selection of enduring columns from his popular ABC News column of the same name.

With an abiding respect for reason, a penchant for puzzles with societal implications, and a disarming sense of humor, Paulos does in this collection what he’s famous for: clarifies mathematical ideas for everyone and shows how they play a role in government, media, popular culture, and life. He argues that if we can’t critically interpret numbers and statistics, we lose one of our most basic and reliable guides to reality.

John Allen Paulos is an extensively praised author, popular public speaker, and former monthly columnist for ABCNews.com, the Scientific American, and the Guardian. Professor of math at Temple University in Philadelphia, he earned his Ph.D. in the subject from the University of Wisconsin.

He is the author, most recently, of A Numerate Life, as well as New York Times-bestseller Innumeracy, among many others. His papers on probability, logic, and the philosophy of science have appeared in numerous academic journals and his articles have appeared in the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, Forbes, the Nation, Discover, the American Scholar, and the London Review of Books. Paulos and has an extensive web and media presence, especially on Twitter @johnallenpaulos.