"La pandemia dei dati" wins another prestigious literary prize

The book authored by USI professor Antonietta Mira and Italian philosopher and journalist Armando Massarenti  "La pandemia dei dati. Ecco il vaccino" has won the "Giancarlo Dosi 2021" national prize for popular science in the area of Mathematical, Physical and Natural Sciences. This is the second prestigious award the book has received in 2021.

At the ninth Premio Nazionale di Divulgazione Scientifica – Giancarlo Dosi, held on December 16 at the Aula Convegni of the National Research Council (CNR) in Rome, the Scientific committee and the Prize jury, formed by scientists, academics, researchers and communication experts, declared the winner for the Mathematical, Physical and Natural Sciences area with the book "La pandemia dei dati. Ecco il vaccino" (Mondadori Università, 2020) by Antonietta Mira, professor of statistics at the USI Faculty of Economics, and Armando Massarenti, Italian philosopher and epistemologist and editor-in-chief of Sole 24 Ore. This is the second prestigious award for the book this year, following the Amerigo Four Freedoms Literary Award in July.

"This book is like a 'mental vaccine' against the increasingly widespread and noisy misinformation that we hope will be 100% effective", comments Prof. Mira. "Our vaccine is called critical thinking and is composed of two basic ingredients: the first is philosophy, which teaches us to have an open mind, to be anti-dogmatic and to enjoy science and knowledge. The second ingredient is quantitative skills - mathematics, probability, statistics - that allow us to survive in the jungle of coronadata and big data in general. The book therefore has an anxiolytic effect in the sense that it helps to manage the anxiety caused by uncertainty, fake news and too much data, and too much data that is often inconsistent creates noise and confusion".

For details about the book: 
www.mondadorieducation.it/catalogo/la-pandemia-dei-dati-0066480/