Dozens of examples in innumeracy show us how it affects not only personal economics and travel plans, but explains mischosen mates, inappropriate drug-testing, and the allure of psuedo-science.
Innumeracy, an inability to deal comfortably with the fundamental notions of number and
chance, plagues far too many otherwise knowledgeable citizens. The same people who cringe
when words such as "imply" and "infer" are confused react without a trace of embarrassment to
even the most egregious of numerical solecisms. I remember once listening to someone at a
party drone on about the difference between "continually" and "continuously." Later that
evening we were watching the news, and the TV weathercaster announced that there was a
50 percent chance of rain for Saturday and a 50 percent chance for Sunday, and concluded that
there was therefore a 100 percent chance of rain that weekend. The remark went right by the
self-styled grammarian, and even after I explained the mistake to him, he wasn't nearly as
indignant as he would have been had the weathercaster left a dangling participle. In fact, unlike
other failings which are hidden, mathematical illiteracy is often flaunted: "I can't even balance
my checkbook." "I'm a people person, not a numbers person." Or "I always hated math."
