- Tags:: #📚Books , [[Statistics]]
- Author:: [[Charles Wheelan]]
- Liked:: #1/5
- Link:: [Naked Statistics: Stripping the Dread from the Data a book by Charles Wheelan (bookshop.org)](https://bookshop.org/p/books/naked-statistics-stripping-the-dread-from-the-data-charles-wheelan/8463650?ean=9780393347777)
- Source date:: [[2023-01-13]]
- Read date:: [[2023-10-01]]
- Cover::
![[cover_naked_statistics.png|100]]
## Why did I want to read it?
A modern classic of statistics books, I wanted to at least skim it to see if I was missing something,
## What did I get out of it?
The intro. Most of the rest of the content is already on other books I've read (e.g., [[📖 Bullshit. Contra la charlatanerÃa]]. Still haven't read the real classic [[How to lie with statistics]]).
>Statistics is like a high-caliber weapon: helpful when used correctly and potentially disastrous in the wrong hands. (p. xiv)
^a47979
> Swedish mathematician and writer [[Andrejs Dunkels]]: It's easy to lie with statistics, but it's hard to tell the truth without them. (p. xv)
^012723
Unlike the "zen of [[Python]]", but it's funny that this happens to [[Pandas]]:
> Statistics rarely offers a single "right" way of doing anything. (p. 1)
The "truth":
>Even in the best of circumstances, statistical analysis rarely unveils "the truth." We are usually building a circumstantial case based on imperfect data. (p. 13)
>significant questions fall prey to the same basic challenge. What is happening to the economic health of the American middle class? That answer depends on how one defines both "middle class" and "economic health." (p. 13)
^922aaf
> Even the most precise and accurate descriptive statistics can suffer from a more fundamental problem: a lack of clarity over what exactly we are trying to define, describe, or explain. (p. 38)
> Statistical arguments have much in common with bad marriages; the disputants often talk past one another. (p. 38)
^a90650
It is quite funny that he proposes a procedural drama named "CSI: Regression Analysis".
Summary statistics:
> My original draft of that sentence used the phrase "oversimplified descriptive statistic," but I struck the word "oversimplified" because it's redundant. **Descriptive statistics exist to simplify, which always implies some loss of nuance or detail. **(p. 6)
> (There is, I suppose, something mildly depressing about having one's lifework collapsed into a single number.) (p. 5)
Trivia:
>The word "data" has historically been considered plural (e.g., "The data are very encouraging.") The singular is "datum," which would refer to a single data point, such as one person's response to a single question on a poll. Using the word "data" as a plural noun is a quick way to signal to anyone who does serious research that you are conversant with statistics. (p. 4)
>Sweden has had significant economic growth over the past two decades, but the Gini index in Sweden actually fell from .25 in 1992 to .23 in 2005, meaning that Sweden grew richer and more equal over that period. (p. 3)