Tom Standage - Go Figure: Things You Didn’t Know You Didn’t Know

The Economist in Association with Profile Books Ltd. and PublicAffairs

Copyright The Economist Newspaper Ltd, 2016

First published in 2016 by Profile Books Ltd. in Great Britain.

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Table of Contents

Contents

DONALD RUMSFELD, US secretary of defence from 2001 to 2006, is known for many things: for being one of the cheerleaders of Americas disastrous invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq; for the scandal of Abu Ghraib, the Iraqi prison where inmates were tortured and abused; and, bizarrely, for releasing an iPhone app based on Winston Churchills fiendishly difficult variant of the game of solitaire. He is also famous for popularising the idea of unknown unknowns. During a press conference in 2002, while answering questions about the lack of evidence that Iraq was supplying terrorist groups with weapons of mass destruction, Mr Rumsfeld said:

Reports that say that something hasnt happened are always interesting to me, because as we know, there are known knowns; there are things we know we know. We also know there are known unknowns; that is to say we know there are some things we do not know. But there are also unknown unknowns the ones we dont know we dont know.

The notion of unknown unknowns was not original; it is used in risk-assessment and project-management circles. But Mr Rumsfelds use of the term introduced it to the popular lexicon. His explanation was widely mocked at the time for being gobbledegook; he was awarded the Foot in Mouth prize by the Plain English Campaign. This was unfair. He was making a philosophical point about the nature and limits of knowledge, building on an old saying, attributed to Socrates, that a wise man knows what he does not know. Socrates never actually put it in those words, but it is not a bad summary of his views. In Platos Apology he is depicted exploring the nature of wisdom and concluding that it is dangerous to assume that being knowledgeable in one area makes you wise in others. Socrates believed, in other words, that wisdom entails understanding the limits of ones knowledge. This is called Socratic ignorance: the awareness of known unknowns, to put it in Rumsfeldian terms.

The aim of this book is to provide an entertaining assortment of both Rumsfeldian and Socratic unknowns, in the form of explanations and visualisations from The Economist: a selection of articles from our explainer blog, The Economist explains, and graphs, maps and charts from our data blog, Graphic detail. The Rumsfeldian unknowns are things you didnt know you didnt know: Why does Sweden have so few road deaths? How can a baby have three parents? Why do so many death-row inmates die of old age? The Socratic ones include things youve probably quietly wondered about, but have not yet got around to Googling: How do hurricanes get their names? Whats the difference between Sunni and Shia Muslims? Whats the difference between a dialect and a language? In keeping with The Economists comparative, global and data-driven view of the world, we also consider things some countries do differently (Why are so many adults adopted in Japan?), economic curiosities (Why are prostitutes lowering their prices?), leisure-related oddities (Why do people like pizzas in a recession?), technological teasers (How has technology made fashion week pass?) and scientific peculiarities (How do you search for time travellers?).

No doubt you will already know the answers to some of these questions. But we hope every reader will experience unanticipated lightbulb moments and enjoy unforeseen illumination. You know that mind-stretching feeling you get when you learn something new and expected? Thats what we aim to deliver each week in The Economist, and the same is true of this book. We hope you will enjoy taking a journey, or at least a few brief excursions, into the unknowns both known and unknown.

Tom Standage

Deputy Editor, The Economist

April 2016

In the North Star tattoo parlour in downtown Manhattan, Brittany shows off her ink: a Banksy-inspired tableau covering both feet. Now a student at New York University, she hopes to be a lawyer one day. Thats why I got the tattoo on my feet, she says. Its easy to hide. Once the preserve of prisoners, sailors and circus freaks, tattoos have become a benign rite of passage for many people. In America, one in five adults has one, and two in five people under 40. Women with tattoos outnumber men. But what happens when people with tattoos look for work? Alas, not everyone is as savvy as Brittany.

Although they are increasingly mainstream, tattoos still signal a certain rebelliousness that works against jobseekers, according to Andrew Timming of the University of St Andrews in Scotland. In a study published in 2013, Dr Timming and colleagues asked participants to assess job candidates based on their pictures, some of which were altered to add a neck tattoo. Inked candidates consistently ranked lower, despite being equally qualified. In a separate study Dr Timming found that many service-sector managers were squeamish about conspicuous tattoos, particularly when filling jobs that involve dealing with customers. And a survey carried out in 2011 by CareerBuilder, a careers website, found that 31% of American employers say that visible tattoos are the personal attribute most likely to discourage them from promoting someone. Some workplaces are more open-minded: a prison-services manager explained that having tattoos made it easier to bond with inmates. Firms with a younger clientele are also more tattoo-friendly. But by and large the more visible the tattoo, the more unsavoury a candidate was deemed to be even if the boss had one.

Such prejudice may seem anachronistic, but it is not unfounded. Empirical studies have long linked tattoos with risk-taking behaviours such as smoking and alcohol abuse, and a higher number of sexual partners. People with inked skin are more likely to carry weapons, use illegal drugs or get arrested. The association is stronger for bigger tattoos, or when someone has several of them, says Jerome Koch, a sociologist at Texas Tech University. This may help explain the US Armys decision in 2014 to reinstate old grooming standards. These restrict the size and number of tattoos, ban ink from the neck, head and hands, and bar body art that might be seen as racist, sexist or otherwise inappropriate. The change is intended to promote discipline and professionalism. But it is making it harder to recruit to the army, says Major Tyler Stewart, who handles recruitment in Arizona. His battalion is turning away 50 tattooed people a week.