Why did Martin love this book?
When I signed up for an introductory statistics course in college, I expected it would cover exactly what this book addresses. At that time, newspaper articles sometimes referred to the book that inspired this one, Darrell Huff’s How to Lie with Statistics.
I was excited to learn how to avoid getting snared by inadvertent and intentional flaws in public opinion polls, medical studies, and investment research. In a highly readable, entertaining style, Charles Wheelan arms his readers against all those pitfalls.
The somewhat abstruse quantitative methods actually taught emphasized in the statistics course proved to be helpful professionally. But Wheelan’s statistical malpractice stories are both accessible to readers unfamiliar with the underlying math and informative to those who are.
3 authors picked Naked Statistics as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.
Once considered tedious, the field of statistics is rapidly evolving into a discipline Hal Varian, chief economist at Google, has actually called "sexy." From batting averages and political polls to game shows and medical research, the real-world application of statistics continues to grow by leaps and bounds. How can we catch schools that cheat on standardized tests? How does Netflix know which movies you'll like? What is causing the rising incidence of autism? As best-selling author Charles Wheelan shows us in Naked Statistics, the right data and a few well-chosen statistical tools can help us answer these questions and more.…