The Rules of Contagion: Why Things Spread–And Why They Stop by Adam Kucharski (PDF)

Description

One of the Best Books of 2020 — Financial TimesOne of the “Most 2020 Books of 2020” — Washington PostOne of the Best Science Books of 2020 — The Times of LondonOne of the Best Science Books of 2020 — The Guardian From ideas and infections to financial crises and fake news, an “utterly timely” look at why the science of outbreaks is the science of modern lifeThese days, whenever anything spreads, whether it’s a YouTube fad or a political rumor, we say it went viral. But how does virality actually work? In The Rules of Contagion, epidemiologist Adam Kucharski explores topics including gun violence, online manipulation, and, of course, outbreaks of disease to show how much we get wrong about contagion, and how astonishing the real science is. Why did the president retweet a Mussolini quote as his own? Why do financial bubbles take off so quickly? Why are disinformation campaigns so effective? And what makes the emergence of new illnesses — such as MERS, SARS, or the coronavirus disease COVID-19 — so challenging? By uncovering the crucial factors driving outbreaks, we can see how things really spread — and what we can do about it. Whether you are an author seeking an audience, a defender of truth, or simply someone interested in human social behavior, The Rules of Contagion is an essential guide to modern life.

User’s Reviews

Reviews from Amazon users which were colected at the time this book was published on the website:

⭐Adam Kucharski provides an important British perspective on the most topical event of today – the COVID pandemic – and so much more. He is a Professor at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, focusing on epidemiology. He is a mathematician by training, yet eschews equations in this book, though there are a number of useful graphs. More than half the book is NOT about the spread of infectious diseases. Kucharski also examines how other medical conditions, such as obesity and smoking are contagious. But more than half the book concerns the spread of “happenings,” as he calls them, from the loss of confidence in the financial markets to a “tweet” going viral, the operative expression for a particular thought (or gut reaction) rapidly spreading among people.If Kucharski had been an America of a certain age, he might have been very reluctant to place a graphic of falling dominos on the cover. That ill-chosen metaphor was the one used by American policy makers in the 50’s and 60’s to explain how communism was going to spread from China through Vietnam all the way to Sydney. The simplicity of that metaphor floundered on the reef of real-world considerations that a domino could not capture. The word “rules” in his title jars. There really are none, in the sense that there are “laws” that govern celestial mechanics. And if we know why things spread and why they stop, then why has Kucharski not provided a date that the current COVID pandemic will end? Or the next banking crisis begin? Because real-world considerations don’t graph well. Ideally, for those graphs and rules to work, human behavior needs to be invariable and without nuance; obviously it is not. Kucharski should have formulated a new and very large Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle for how things change when one attempts to measure them and grab some of the probabilities from Quantum Mechanics. Kucharski even provides the classic retort to his claim of “rules”: “If you’ve seen one pandemic, you’ve seen… one pandemic” (meaning that each is different).With that very substantial criticism aside, Kucharski has provided a very worthwhile and unique read, relating the factors involved in the spread of contagious diseases, financial panics and ideas in the social media. He provides a suitable lead in by providing the basis for his interest in epidemiology: as a child he had Guillain-Barré syndrome, an unusual condition that results in a malfunctioning immune system. Fortunately, he has almost fully recovered.Kucharski then commences with a history of my personal bugaboo, malaria, and the work of the British Army surgeon, Ronald Ross, who determined that it was transferred to humans by mosquitoes and not “bad air.” He relates some of Ross’ calculations on the spread of malaria, which stated with some precision that it would take 48,000 mosquitoes to generate one new human infection. What? From there Kucharski goes on to relate how the Zika virus was spread, and his personal work on the matter. In the second chapter he commences with Sir Isaac Newton’s quote: “I can calculate the motion of heavenly bodies but not the madness of people.” Amen. (Newton lost a lot of money when the South Sea Company bubble burst.) From there, Kucharski is soon discussing the financial panic of 2008.Kucharski does provide us an equation, of sorts. The “R” that we have heard so much about recently, which represents the number of new cases that will occur from one infected person, is determined by the “DOTS,” an acronym for “Duration,” “Opportunities,” “Transmission probability” and “Susceptibility.” The devilish problem of determining the coefficient for these four factors is omitted.Most of the book however concerns the contagion of “happenings” like obesity and gun violence. Each a very worthy subject in its own right, with even greater difficulty in determining those slippery, variable coefficients. Most informative also were the chapters on the many people who study our on-line behavior, sometimes for political motivation and the next election, sometimes in order to throw another ad in our face. I kept thinking of the tremendous energy put into such projects, like measuring baseball player stats, and wondered what the utility is, compared with determining the reason why people are unwilling to be vaccinated.Despite my substantial criticism, there are many useful anecdotes and possible tenuous connections posited, all for the neurons to refine. 4-stars.

⭐It has long been realized that the spread of opinions, preferences, or practices, and nowadays fake news or cat videos, is conceptually analogous to the spread of disease. This book, coincidently written just before the COVID-19 pandemic, tells stories about literal and analogous epidemics in modern Malcolm Gladwell style but without the latter’s grandiose generalizations. It provides colorful and informative background to the reproduction number R, herd immunity, superspreaders etc on the literal side, and influencers, social contagion, “going viral” etc on the analogies side. There is no mathematics beyond the back-of-envelope calculation of 1 + R + R^2 + ….. for the size of the outbreak emanating from 1 infected individual.Other authors would do well to take this as a model for popular science writing.

⭐It’s a really good book for those that want to find out a bit about the math behind “contagion” spread. The book covers not only epidemiology but also much broader context of stock markets and social media and the mechanism behind something going “viral” while other not. This is not a book on biology, as it was written by a mathematician, but also not a book on mathematics. If you are like me – somewhat nerdy – you will become familiar with key terms and concepts in epidemiology, but you will need to look elsewhere for the detailed math behind them. If you are not into math, don’t worry. The book is perfectly suitable for non-technical audience also.The primary area where it excels it at showing how many unknowns are in each model and how challenging it is to build a robust one. Author’s opinions are also supported by his professional experience in disease monitoring. On overall a very enjoyable read.

⭐Gives important insights on contagion also relevant in fields other than the medical – social media, criminal, etc. Great reference to understanding why the existing pandemic focuses so much on the R-factor, its components and how historically developed.

⭐While not like the solution to the Meaning of the Universe, the author’s experience in a variety of contagions provides an excellent framework for thought about many forms of contagion, in fields beyond medical. Contagions including thought, religion, and ordinary fads come at us daily. One does not have to agree with every scintilla of his text to find excellent value. Jes saying, as a polymath.

⭐I raced through this book because I was already familiar with most of the material, but for those who are not, I should think it fascinating. The book covers many contagious phenomena, not just diseases. Overall it is well written and entertaining.

⭐This was a fascinating read. You’ll learn about how and why emotions, diseases, ideas, memes, etc., spread. You’ll also learn how an early version of Goldilocks was a hateful old wench that the three bears later set fire to and impaled on St Paul’s Cathedral. #JustWentfromZerotoAHundredRealQuick. Also learn about the numerous similarities between computer viruses and regular viruses, especially how and why both mutate with time. Spread seems to be uberly fractal in nature.

⭐I bought the book to learn more about propagation of diseases. Although the spread of ideas is important and I was glad to learn about real world experience, I would have appreciated more about viruses such as COVID. Interesting book nonetheless.

⭐Adam Kurcharski is someone who knows what he is talking about, after all he is an Associate Professor and Henry Dale Fellow at the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine, amongst other things, including publishing pieces in various science and other magazines and newspapers, as well as TED talks. As his wife works in advertising so he is someone who studying the spread of infection and trying to prevent it also sees how for his wife it is about trying to make things viral in another field.Thus this book blends trying to understand the spread of contagion, what causes it, trying to prevent deaths and infections, along with the spreading of information and such like on a technological platform, making this well worth reading. Unfortunately, the idiots at the moment who are stockpiling toiler paper and other products, not practising social distancing and isolation are those who should read this, but if they cannot understand why they should be doing these things, they will never understand this book.Taking in many different disciplines and showing how work in one field has helped in other ones so we see how although computer modelling can help to a degree, it will take much more information and mathematical equations to improve algorithms and of course you have to be able to factor in human stupidity. Taking us from work by Ronald Ross on combating malaria, we are taken through to others such as Robert Koch, John Snow, et al. With looking at medical science we can also get insights from studies into language and folktales, making for an absorbing read.This is so much more than a medical type text as we see not only the spread of viruses in the real world, but also those on-line, and how the work going on in tech companies are at times causing problems, such as trying to manipulate people and direct advertising, along with trying to spread misinformation and disinformation. All the components that make up this book will carry interest for lots of people and shows at times how things can get out of hand, even unintentionally, as well as more direct malicious approach. Taking in such things as the financial crisis and how many were wrong when they thought that major banks were too large to fail, so we can see how certain assumptions have been turned on their heads as well as also showing how viruses can jump species (such as COVID-19) and how further mutations can make things become resistant to antibiotics.In all this is at the present time a timely wake-up call for many and shows what advances we have made, and those that we still need to make if we want better control over pandemics and so on. Also, this shows unethical approaches that have led to results that are still used, and how we do not know how data collected about us is sometimes used.

⭐writing in the midst of the COVID-2019 pandemic, this is a very good read to understand the progress of contagions but also the way (hopefully) they end.The book also covers viral information as well as medical outbreaks, and is very clearly written by a leading practioner (epidemiologist) who has a gift for explaining relatively complex processes in plain language.

⭐This book on contagion has been updated to include our COVID epidemic. It is not necessarily a book about disease spreading but of course it does include that. Many things spread, viruses, rumours, recommendations etc. and this book mentions them all from malaria and Ebola to viral posts on social media. It is a reference book on how ‘things’ get around and is most interesting as a non-fiction book.The description on Amazon gives the number of pages but be aware that the author references a LOT of sources and lists them at the back of the book so the number of pages quoted in the listing includes the considerable number of referrals and you may find the book is not as long as you expected.An interesting read nevertheless.

⭐I heard the author speaking on the radio, and describing the four things that need to happen for someone to be infected by Covid19 (or anything else). I was impressed. DOTS stands for Duration of the infection in person A, the Opportunity to infection Person B (by being close, for instance); Transmission (the sneeze that contains the virus, perhaps); and then Susceptibility in Person B (if they have a weak immune system, maybe). The book gives you the history of the study of infection, including the development of the understanding of ‘herd immunity’ over a century ago. But the rest of the book is about the contagion of ideas (and posts going viral on the net), and I found that a distraction.

⭐As we are facing coronavirus worldwide. I decided to read this book. The yellow page of the book strike’s right away.I enjoyed reading the book especially on how the false media and false information can be spread online as much as any virus.4* only because some paragraphs were too rocket science for me.

Keywords

Free Download The Rules of Contagion: Why Things Spread–And Why They Stop in PDF format
The Rules of Contagion: Why Things Spread–And Why They Stop PDF Free Download
Download The Rules of Contagion: Why Things Spread–And Why They Stop 2020 PDF Free
The Rules of Contagion: Why Things Spread–And Why They Stop 2020 PDF Free Download
Download The Rules of Contagion: Why Things Spread–And Why They Stop PDF
Free Download Ebook The Rules of Contagion: Why Things Spread–And Why They Stop