Proof: The Uncertain Science of Certainty
Mar 2025 · Profile Books
Ebook
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infoThis book will become available on March 20, 2025. You will not be charged until it is released.
About this ebook
'Profound and utterly absorbing. Kucharski elegantly explores how proof is not just a mathematical concept but a vital tool in decision-making, justice, and survival' CHRIS VAN TULLEKEN
How far would you go in your search for certainty? And once you get there, how do you convince others?
From the medieval Islamic world to the recent pandemic, scientific progress has relied on different methods of establishing fact from fiction. Today, in the face of ever-increasing disinformation, how we prove things - to ourselves and others - has never felt more urgent.
But there is far more to proof than axioms, theories and scientific laws: when demonstrating that an experimental medical treatment works, persuading a jury of someone's guilt, or deciding whether to trust a new type of financial transaction, weighing up evidence is rarely simple.
Bestselling author, statistician and epidemiologist Adam Kucharski ranges across science, politics, philosophy and economics to explore how truth emerges - and why it falters.
How far would you go in your search for certainty? And once you get there, how do you convince others?
From the medieval Islamic world to the recent pandemic, scientific progress has relied on different methods of establishing fact from fiction. Today, in the face of ever-increasing disinformation, how we prove things - to ourselves and others - has never felt more urgent.
But there is far more to proof than axioms, theories and scientific laws: when demonstrating that an experimental medical treatment works, persuading a jury of someone's guilt, or deciding whether to trust a new type of financial transaction, weighing up evidence is rarely simple.
Bestselling author, statistician and epidemiologist Adam Kucharski ranges across science, politics, philosophy and economics to explore how truth emerges - and why it falters.
About the author
Adam Kucharski is a professor at the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine. A mathematician by training, his work on global outbreaks has included Ebola, Zika and COVID-19, and he has produced real-time analysis for multiple governments and health agencies. He is a TED senior fellow and winner of the 2016 Rosalind Franklin Award Lecture and the 2012 Wellcome Trust Science Writing Prize. The bestselling author of The Rules of Contagion, his writing has appeared in the Observer, Financial Times, Wired and New Statesman.
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