Conned Again, Watson! Cautionary Tales of Logic, Math, and Probability Paperback – January 15, 2002

I like this book. I find the writing both entertaining and informative. A few years ago, when it seemed that the book was going out of print, I managed to create a small stash of these so that I can give them as gifts to people who I believe would enjoy reading it.This being said, I read all the negative reviews, and I must say with all honesty that the criticisms leveled at the book are legitimate. If you are expecting a book of Sherlock Holmes detective stories of the original Conan Doyle's kind, you will be disappointed. In fact, this is not at all a book of detective stories and mysteries. Also, if you are an expert in mathematics, you will find most of the discussion rather shallow and unnecessarily protracted.However, if you understand well what this book isn't, there is no reason why you shouldn't enjoy the book for what it is.In this book Colin Bruce offers a nice mix of tidbits from mathematics, probability, and game theory, all presented in a belletrized form. The Sherlockian atmosphere is meant just as an entertaining backdrop. The first chapter is, I think, well written, but does not offer much substance. There are a lot more interesting bits and pieces spread throughout the rest of the book.The book is not perfect, and there are some things that I found irritating. Chapters 5 and 6 seem to be unnecessarily drawn out, with an excessively long and insipid background story. In Chapter 3, Watson says: "1 January 1900. We had entered the twentieth century!" He makes a similar remark earlier in Chapter 2. Yet, in both cases, Holmes doesn't catch on to say that actually, the twentieth century does not start until January 1, 1901.The stories in the book are meant to be happening around the year 1900. In this setting, a bunch of "historical" figures make an appearance: Lewis Carrol, Karl Marx, Lenin... But in reality, in 1900 both Karl Marx and Lewis Carrol had been dead for some time. He also plays loose with the history of aviation and technology in general. So, while the author aims to clear some confusion about matters of logic, probability and statistics, he confuses the reader with historical inaccuracies. And, as it becomes clear in the afterword, deliberately so. Also, I find distasteful the way he describes Lewis Carrol.Overall, however, I find the book utterly enjoyable, and I hope that other people will like it too. Each chapter is a small self-contained story and there is no unifying plot line, so you can possibly read the book from any place, without losing anything of the story.

5 stars for a creative idea and a well executed book; 3 stars for likelihood of attracting readers who will enjoy and benefit from reading it. The author has written twelve 20-page stories featuring Sherlock Holmes, each intended to illustrate a common logical error. There is a nicely wide-ranging choice of such errors, many but not all from my own field of Probability (e.g. the gambler's fallacy, birthday paradox, Prisoner's Dilemma, Bayes calculations). The author largely succeeds in copying the tone of the Holmes stories (definitely a tribute, not a satire or pastiche) though unsurprisingly his prose is somewhat more "flat" than Conan Doyle's. And there is an extremely well written afterword giving further analysis of the logic.But who should read it? To me, we read fiction for pleasure in the moment (like playing a game) whereas in reading non-fiction we hope some of it will stick in our mind. So while this book is entertaining and informative "in the moment", it's not clear if these logical points will stick -- the contrived stories may be more of a distraction rather than an aid.Moreover the reason we make logical errors is not because we are arbitrarily stupid, but because we confuse a given setting with another, superficially similar, setting in which the argument would be correct. To my taste, a more interesting and informative general account of the psychology involved is given in the  Predictably Irrational  style of book. And as for the specific errors, to fully internalize a point you need to understand not only examples where the error is made but also superficially similar examples where the error is not made; this is hard to do via fiction.

Love this book as it tells stories in the style of Sherlock Holmes stories and have good probability lessons embedded. I used one story with a group of 7th graders in an integrated Math/ELA lesson when I was a substitute for the class. Enjoyable experience for all of us. (I am a retired math teacher who enjoys probability lessons.)

The book is a list of biases and fallacies clothed in the English and London universe of 1899-1900. For a 2011 reader, this makes the stories a bit more difficult to follow given the somewhat archaic environment and language.For instance, the simple Wason Test is described in a convoluted story around some graveyard stones. Bruce explains in the Afterword that the decision was thus made to prevent the reader from distinguishing an abstract Wason test (the odd/even number vs. vowel/consonant cards) from a realistic one (cheating about one's age to drink alcohol). I found this device to be ineffective. In my opinion, you're better off reading about the Wason Test and the Monty Hall problem on Wikipedia than reading Chapter 5 of the book.That said, there are interesting morsels throughout the book: why buses tend to come in pairs much more often than regularly spaced in time; the minimax method; how to calculate the numbers of wild populations of animals; why picking the shortest checkout line if often a bad idea; why the most common first digit of prices is 1; how self-interest is more effective than altruism for equitable outcomes.

Excellent mind-boggling stories based in math and statistics.

Really r excellent. Entertaining. Bright. Interesting

Brilliant piece of work. Very good for stretching the 'little grey cells'.Probability comes to life, and death,in the usual Holmes way.

I read the first story & put it down forever. It seemed to be "OK, sorta" then the story ended. Just ended. What!

A clever dramatisation of issues around probability, statistics and decision theory.

内容は、とても興味深く面白い話ばかりでした。「あぁ、ホームズならこう言いそう!!」と思える所もあり気になる程のキャラ崩れもなくて良かったです。ちょっとした、詐欺の方法についても取り上げられており（その手法は現在でも行われているものだと最近TVで知った）結構、参考になります。　ただ、「数学が苦手な人でも読めそう」というのに惹かれて購入しましたが『数字』自体が苦手な方は、少々覚悟がいりそうです（笑）私がそうなんですが、数字の場面を飛ばせば、まったく問題はないです。

難しい話しはほとんどありません。仕事でもなんでもいいですから、数字の理屈で何かをしようとするとき「あー、それでも数字は苦手だなぁ」という方には、良いヒントになると思います。難しい数式などが網羅されるのではなく、ストーリーに沿って数字の理屈を感覚的にとらえることが出来るからです。最近ビジネスでは「ロジカルシンキング」という言葉をよく聞きますが、数字の理論を理解することは大事だと思います。私は理系人間ではなく、どちらかというと数字は苦手ですが、ワトスンとホームズが描くストーリーが難しさを和らげてくれます。仕事に遊びに、なにか仕掛けてやろうという方におすすめ。

日常生活の中で確率を概算し、行動を選択することは良くあります。そうして失敗することも良くあります。運がなかったんだな。と諦めがちですが、そもそも正解と確信していた確率の殆どが誤っていたとしたら！実は確率の低いほうを選択し、失敗はある程度必然だったとしたら！この短編集では、様々な事件に確率が絡み、まずワトソンが、私達が考えるであろう誤った確率を導き、それをホームズが判りやすく訂正する。という形式をとっています。一瞬、何故そうなるのか判らない数字も、一編を読むと数学的知識の必要なしにキチンと理解できる様になっております。賭け事、当てっこ遊びなど、日常生活に出てくる事を題材としており、直ぐに応用が効きそうです。また、著名人がちょこちょこ顔を出すのもこのシリーズの薬味となっています。