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Statistics for Beginners: How easy it is to lie with statistics in business, social science, politics, criminology and law
Have you ever wondered what your neighbor does every morning at 8:35 am, when you hear weird sounds coming from his balcony?
Did you ever realize that the “likes“ you put on other people´s Instagram account will influence the next summer collection of Zara, H&M and Nike?
Are you aware that whenever you swipe your credit card in the supermarket, you are not only paying with money, but you are giving valuable personal data away for free?
The science of collecting, analyzing and interpreting data became a powerful tool to get useful information about humans and their environment.
Personal data has more value than ever and yet you leave terabytes of it for free on your devices or floating around in your cloud.
Not only do Google and Facebook harvest billions from using your data for advertising, but talented hackers have also created a luxurious living from stealing and selling your data.
In our high tech world, decision making is based on evidence instead of assumptions.
By now our entire world is build around reliable statistics.
…ehm HOLD ON.
Reliable?
If I tell you baldness raises the cardiovascular disease risk up to 70% , it is a true fact.
What I forgot to mention is baldness and old age are related. So what is the cause of cardiovascular diseases? Baldness or old age?
Statistics can be misleading and manipulating.
Yet there are incredible examples of how statistics helped to solve crimes and find a serial killer.
In “Statistics for Beginners“, you´ll
Did you ever realize that the “likes“ you put on other people´s Instagram account will influence the next summer collection of Zara, H&M and Nike?
Are you aware that whenever you swipe your credit card in the supermarket, you are not only paying with money, but you are giving valuable personal data away for free?
The science of collecting, analyzing and interpreting data became a powerful tool to get useful information about humans and their environment.
Personal data has more value than ever and yet you leave terabytes of it for free on your devices or floating around in your cloud.
Not only do Google and Facebook harvest billions from using your data for advertising, but talented hackers have also created a luxurious living from stealing and selling your data.
In our high tech world, decision making is based on evidence instead of assumptions.
By now our entire world is build around reliable statistics.
…ehm HOLD ON.
Reliable?
If I tell you baldness raises the cardiovascular disease risk up to 70% , it is a true fact.
What I forgot to mention is baldness and old age are related. So what is the cause of cardiovascular diseases? Baldness or old age?
Statistics can be misleading and manipulating.
Yet there are incredible examples of how statistics helped to solve crimes and find a serial killer.
In “Statistics for Beginners“, you´ll
160 pages, Kindle Edition
Published May 12, 2019
6 people are currently reading
7 people want to read
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Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews
October 27, 2021
Don’t want to spend too much time writing this review considering the time I lost reading it, but the book is not at all what it purports to be in its description and relies on generalization, allegory, and outright conspiratorial ranting. Very disappointing for a reader genuinely looking to understand probability and data science based on real world application. If someone finds THAT book, let me know.
May 15, 2019
Pay More Attention to the Subtitle than the Title
If you just look at the title of this book, you might be led to believe that it might help you with your Probability and Statistics class. But another look at the subtitle suggests that this book is not meant to aid academic studies—as well as revealing a certain bias about statistics. I would agree with the author that statistics may be manipulated to say whatever a person or organization wants them to say. However, this particular book is unfocused in its discussion of statistics. The introductory parts of the book don’t seem to have much to do with statistics at all, or at least with the author is trying to show is not done so that the inferences can be clearly drawn. The core of the book aims to look at specific segments of society or academia and how they use and abuse statistics; laws and criminality, business, social sciences, and politics. However, the first case he looks at in a criminology section has more to do with business than law. Each of the cases or concepts that he looks at aren’t written in a tightly cohesive fashion to make them more easily understood by the reader.
I think the book needed a general editor to help the author focus the entire book as well as the sections of it. The book is also in serious need of a copyeditor or proofreader, as many basic rules of grammar and punctuation seem to be unknown to or disregarded by the author.
I believe this is a worthwhile topic for a book. Its promise, however, was not realized by this author.
I received a free copy of this book, but that did not affect my review--obviously.
Read my other reviews at https://www.readingfanaticreviews.com.
If you just look at the title of this book, you might be led to believe that it might help you with your Probability and Statistics class. But another look at the subtitle suggests that this book is not meant to aid academic studies—as well as revealing a certain bias about statistics. I would agree with the author that statistics may be manipulated to say whatever a person or organization wants them to say. However, this particular book is unfocused in its discussion of statistics. The introductory parts of the book don’t seem to have much to do with statistics at all, or at least with the author is trying to show is not done so that the inferences can be clearly drawn. The core of the book aims to look at specific segments of society or academia and how they use and abuse statistics; laws and criminality, business, social sciences, and politics. However, the first case he looks at in a criminology section has more to do with business than law. Each of the cases or concepts that he looks at aren’t written in a tightly cohesive fashion to make them more easily understood by the reader.
I think the book needed a general editor to help the author focus the entire book as well as the sections of it. The book is also in serious need of a copyeditor or proofreader, as many basic rules of grammar and punctuation seem to be unknown to or disregarded by the author.
I believe this is a worthwhile topic for a book. Its promise, however, was not realized by this author.
I received a free copy of this book, but that did not affect my review--obviously.
Read my other reviews at https://www.readingfanaticreviews.com.
June 1, 2021
I listened to this as an audiobook on Spotify. This book, just as it describes itself, is for beginners. I had a very easy time understanding this book. The book was split up in a way I found easy to follow. There were many kinds of strategies brought up on the topic of deceiving the public through manipulation and presentation of statistics. I liked the voice of Cliff Weldon, the narrator. A lot of the theoretical examples used were funny and clear. Some examples, however, very obviously pointed out a bias on the part of the author even as he tried to distance himself.
One example that I found hilarious for all the wrong reasons, was when he used a company marketing BDSM as an example. The author made the assumption that masochists (he used a far funnier word than that, but I do not remember exactly what) do not find BDSM relaxing, that only sadists do. I'm not aware of the general public's scope of knowledge when it comes to BDSM, but I'm sure with even a quick google search this assumption could be disproven. It's literally science. I think in cases like these it would have been much better to use an example in a field the author is actually a bit familiar with, rather than gunning for a field they have no experience with for the sake of 'shock value.'
Overall I found great value in this book, but keep in mind to stay aware of the biases at play.
One example that I found hilarious for all the wrong reasons, was when he used a company marketing BDSM as an example. The author made the assumption that masochists (he used a far funnier word than that, but I do not remember exactly what) do not find BDSM relaxing, that only sadists do. I'm not aware of the general public's scope of knowledge when it comes to BDSM, but I'm sure with even a quick google search this assumption could be disproven. It's literally science. I think in cases like these it would have been much better to use an example in a field the author is actually a bit familiar with, rather than gunning for a field they have no experience with for the sake of 'shock value.'
Overall I found great value in this book, but keep in mind to stay aware of the biases at play.
December 3, 2022
This is actually a good example of a terrible book. The author sets out to demonstrate how easy it is to distort the facts with statistics, but falls prey to the very fallacies he describes. At some point there is a crazy rant about how "the feminists" are trying to justify alimony because it gives them power. The main problem is that the author's arguments involve too many variables, which make the conclusions very unreliable. Waste of time.
Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews