Critical Statistics: Seeing Beyond the Headlines

by Robert De Vries

Awarded the 2019 Most Promising New Textbook Award by the Textbook & Academic Authors Association.

This accessible and entertaining new textbook provides students with the knowledge and skills they need to understand the barrage of numbers encountered in their everyday lives and studies. Almost all the statistics in the news, on social media or in scientific reports are based on just a few core concepts, including measurement (ensuring we count the right thing), causation (determining whether one thing causes another) and sampling (using just a few people to understand a whole population). By explaining these concepts in plain language, without complex mathematics, this book prepares students to meet the statistical world head on and to begin their own quantitative research projects.

Ideal for students facing statistical research for the first time, or for anyone interested in understanding more about the numbers in the news, this textbook helps students to see beyond the headlines and behind the numbers.

250 pages, Paperback

Published October 4, 2018

Reviews

[Adam · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is essential reading for anyone looking to understand how to interpret and examine the vast array of statistical information we encounter in our daily lives. Although it is intended as a textbook, it is accessible and entertaining enough for the lay reader, with a welcome dose of humor, and plenty of real-world examples to demonstrate each point. Potential readers who are intimidated by mathematics should not fear. Rather than focusing on the underlying mathematical methods that produce statistics, the author instead has written a work meant to develop critical thinking skills around the ways that statistics are produced and communicated, particularly the ways that statistics can be used to deceive or mislead.

[Manfred · Rating 4 out of 5]

I enjoyed this very much. It's written in easy comprehensible language and also with lots of wit.
Each chapter is dedicated to a certain aspect of statistics and provides easy to follow examples. At the end of each chapter the content gets summarised and further reading recommendations are listed. I also liked that the author particularly pays attention to provide examples from both left and right leaning parties when dealing with political topics. It's also worth noting that the author doesn't only try to be objective, but also transparently states "it shouldn't leave the impression that I'm a left-leaning academic (although I am a left-leaning academic)", which in my opinion is a good way of dealing with bias (or criticism thereof), additionally to trying to be objective in the first place.