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Allen B. Downey

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https://allendowney.com

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AllenDowney

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Nonfiction

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September 2012

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Allen Downey is a Professor Emeritus at Olin College and the author of a series of freetextbooks related to software and data science, including Think Python, Think Bayes, and Think Complexity, which are also published by O’Reilly Media. His blog, Probably Overthinking It, features articles on Bayesian probability and statistics. He holds a Ph.D. in computer science from U.C. Berkeley, and M.S. and B.S. degrees from MIT.

280 posts
Allen B. Downey's Blog: Probably Overthinking It

An Agentic Data Science Story

For a recent collaboration with AIBM, I found myself working with data from the National Survey of Family Growth (NSFG), which I used in several examples in Think Stats. I was reminded of the technical debt I have accumulated while working with this data, and the dread I feel getting back to it. So I decided to make it a case study in agentic data science.

I asked Claude Code to take in

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Allen B. Downey’s books

Average rating: 4.00 · 3,319 ratings · 404 reviews · 33 distinct works • Similar authors

	Think Python 4.13 avg rating — 1,695 ratings — 59 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	Think Stats 3.64 avg rating — 471 ratings — published 2011 — 28 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	Think Bayes: Bayesian Statistics in Python 3.95 avg rating — 292 ratings — published 2012 — 14 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	Think Complexity: Complexity Science and Computational Modeling 3.92 avg rating — 247 ratings — published 2009 — 13 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	Think Java: How to Think Like a Computer Scientist 3.91 avg rating — 169 ratings — published 2016 — 19 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	Probably Overthinking It: How to Use Data to Answer Questions, Avoid Statistical Traps, and Make Better Decisions 4.14 avg rating — 113 ratings	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	The Little Book of Semaphores: The Ins and Outs of Concurrency Control and Common Mistakes 4.41 avg rating — 83 ratings — published 2009	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	Think DSP: Digital Signal Processing in Python really liked it 4.00 avg rating — 45 ratings — 4 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	Think Data Structures: Algorithms and Information Retrieval in Java 3.42 avg rating — 38 ratings — 8 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	Think OS: A Brief Introduction to Operating Systems really liked it 4.00 avg rating — 29 ratings — published 2014 — 5 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars

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Allen is Currently Reading

Allen Downey is currently reading

Every Tool's a Hammer: Life Is What You Make It

by Adam Savage

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May 22, 2026 07:06PM

Allen’s Recent Updates

Allen Downey wants to read The Book of Lost Hours by Hayley Gelfuso (Goodreads Author) Goodreads Choice Awards Nominee in Readers' Favorite Science Fiction	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
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Allen Downey finished reading Therapy Nation: How America Got Hooked on Therapy and Why It's Left Us More Anxious and Divided by Jonathan Alpert	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
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Allen Downey wants to read The Grim Old Days: An Introduction to the Preindustrial Past by Chelsea Follett	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
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Allen Downey finished reading The Reverse Centaur's Guide to Life After AI by Cory Doctorow (Goodreads Author)	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
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Allen Downey wants to read This Cursed Beautiful Land: A Russian-American Story by Evan Gershkovich	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
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Allen Downey did not finish Days Without End (Days Without End, #1) by Sebastian Barry	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
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Allen Downey started reading Therapy Nation: How America Got Hooked on Therapy and Why It's Left Us More Anxious and Divided by Jonathan Alpert	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
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Quotes by Allen B. Downey (?)

“For all live births, the mean pregnancy length is 38.6 weeks, the standard deviation is 2.7 weeks, which means we should expect deviations of 2-3 weeks to be common.”
― Allen B. Downey, Think Stats

tags: explanations-math

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Topics Mentioning This Author

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100+ Books in 2026: Genndy's 104 books reading challenge in 2015	105	80	Dec 29, 2015 11:11AM

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