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Review of "Statistics" by Freedman, Pisani, and Purves (2017)

153 点作者 luu5 个月前

14 条评论

ivan_ah5 个月前
I&#x27;ve been working on a introductory STATS book for the past couple of years and I totally understand where the OP is coming from. There are so many books out there that focus on technique (the HOW), but don&#x27;t explain the reasoning (the WHY).<p>I guess it wouldn&#x27;t be a problem if the techniques being taught in STATS101 were actually usable in the real world. A bit like driving a car: you don&#x27;t need to know how internal combustion engines work, you just need to press the pedals (and not endanger others on the road). The problem is z-tests, t-tests, ANOVA, have very limited use cases. Most real-world data analysis will require more advanced models, so the STATS education is doubly-problematic: does not teach you useful skills OR teach you general principles.<p>I spent a lot of time researching and thinking about STATS curriculum and choosing which topics are actually worth covering. I wrote a blog post about this[1]. In the end I settled on a computation-heavy approach, which allows me to do lots of hands simulations and demonstrations of concepts, something that will be helpful for tech-literate readers, but I think also for the non-tech people, since it will be easier to learn Python+STATS than to try to learn STATS alone. Here is a detailed argument about how Python is useful for learning statistics[2].<p>If you&#x27;re interested in seeing the book outline, you can check this google doc[3]. Comments welcome. I&#x27;m currently writing the last chapter, so hopefully will be done with it by January. I have a mailing list[4] for ppl who want to be notified when the book is ready.<p>[1] <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;minireference.com&#x2F;blog&#x2F;fixing-the-statistics-curriculum&#x2F;" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;minireference.com&#x2F;blog&#x2F;fixing-the-statistics-curricu...</a><p>[2] <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;minireference.com&#x2F;blog&#x2F;python-for-stats&#x2F;" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;minireference.com&#x2F;blog&#x2F;python-for-stats&#x2F;</a><p>[3] <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;docs.google.com&#x2F;document&#x2F;d&#x2F;1fwep23-95U-w1QMPU31nOvUnUXE2X3s_Dbk5JuLlKAY&#x2F;edit" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;docs.google.com&#x2F;document&#x2F;d&#x2F;1fwep23-95U-w1QMPU31nOvUn...</a><p>[4] <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;confirmsubscription.com&#x2F;h&#x2F;t&#x2F;A17516BF2FCB41B2" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;confirmsubscription.com&#x2F;h&#x2F;t&#x2F;A17516BF2FCB41B2</a>
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joshdavham5 个月前
&gt; Much of the power of statistics is in common sense, amplified by appropriate mathematical tools, and refined through careful analysis.<p>I hate to be contrarian, but even though I have a degree in statistics, I feel like much of statistics&#x2F;probability actually violates common sense. In fact, it&#x27;s probably the most unintuitive field that I&#x27;m familiar with.<p>Many of the readers will probably be familiar with the Monty Hall problem or the Birthday problem, but imo, the entire field of statistics&#x2F;probability is about equally unintuitive&#x2F;violating of common sense.
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by2565 个月前
I read&#x2F;worked through Freedman&#x27;s Statistics a couple of years ago and I walked away from it a different person. I always recommend it when someone asks for a good book to learn statistics from. However, it did leave me craving some of the maths that the authors intentionally left out to make the material more accessible. Freedman&#x27;s more advanced book, Statistical Models, has you derive many of the results from the first book right at the start, then focuses mainly on linear models. It was a great follow-up which provided the mathematical substance that I felt was missing from the first book.
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treetalker5 个月前
- David Freedman, Robert Pisani, and Roger Purves, <i>Statistics</i>, 4th ed.<p>- The article&#x27;s author also recommends these online materials: <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.stat.berkeley.edu&#x2F;~stark&#x2F;SticiGui&#x2F;Text&#x2F;toc.htm" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.stat.berkeley.edu&#x2F;~stark&#x2F;SticiGui&#x2F;Text&#x2F;toc.htm</a>.
wellshapedwords5 个月前
Coincidentally, I just finished the final chapter of this book. I wanted to learn the fundamentals after taking an (execrable) Coursera&#x2F;IBM course on Python and data science. This book was perfect.<p>I like this style of introducing a technical topic to a broad audience. It builds incrementally and practically. The prose is clear enough for a layman to gain a conceptual appreciation of the methods even if they skip the exercises. And while the exercises weren’t too demanding, there were many of them, always framed in real world context. For the portion of the audience who will study further, I like to think that the book’s approach towards problem solving and challenging the intuition could be helpful throughout an entire career of statistical thinking.
maroonblazer5 个月前
From the end of TFA:<p>&gt;The book is not without its weak moments, although they are few. One in particular which I recall is the treatment of A&#x2F;B testing. Essential to any hypothesis testing is the matter of how to reduce the sampling mechanism to a simple probabilistic model, so that a quantitative test may be derived. The book emphasizes one such model: simple random sampling from a population, which then involves the standard probabilistic ideas of binomial and multinomial distributions, along with the normal approximation to these. Thus, one obtains the z-test.<p>&gt;In the context of randomized controlled experiments, where a set of subjects is randomly assigned to either a control or treatment group, the simple random sampling model is inapplicable. Nonetheless, when asking whether the treatment has an effect there is a suitable (two-sample) z-test. The mathematical ideas behind it are necessarily different from those of the previously mentioned z-test, because the sampling mechanism here is different, but the end result looks the same. Why this works out as it does is explained rather opaquely in the book, since the authors never developed the probabilistic tools necessary to make sense of it (here one would find at least a mention of hypergeometric distributions). Given the emphasis placed in the beginning of the book on the importance of randomized, controlled experiments in statistics, it feels like this topic is getting short-shrift.<p>Can anyone recommend good resources to fill this alleged gap?
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djoldman5 个月前
Most statistics classes are not taught to people who will be professional statisticians. I agree whole-heartedly with this:<p>&gt; The book by Freedman, Pisani, and Purves is the one I would have liked to teach from, and it was the book I drew upon the most in prepping my own lectures, as an antidote to the overwrought and confused style of my assigned text. The authors maintain the underlying attitude that statistics is a useful tool for understanding certain questions about the world, but in this way it augments human judgement, rather than supplanting it. To quote from the preface:<p>&gt; &gt; Why does the book include so many exercises that cannot be solved by plugging into a formula? The reason is that few real-life statistical problems can be solved that way. Blindly plugging into statistical formulas has caused a lot of confusion. So this book takes a different approach: thinking.
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aerhardt5 个月前
I&#x27;ve formally studied stats up to calculus-based probability and I&#x27;m now brushing up on math ahead of starting Georgia Tech&#x27;s OMSCS. I feel more fluent than I&#x27;ve ever been but the following quoted passage from the book really hits home:<p>&quot;Why does the book include so many exercises that cannot be solved by plugging into a formula? The reason is that few real-life statistical problems can be solved that way. Blindly plugging into statistical formulas has caused a lot of confusion. So this book takes a different approach: thinking.&quot;<p>This applies to both math and stats. I appreciate the value in grinding pure, fundamental technique but as I&#x27;m reviewing I&#x27;m missing more real-life applications. Theory feels like a plan until real-life throws you the first punch.<p>I&#x27;ll be buying this book, thanks for the recommendation!
rafeyahmad5 个月前
Excellent book. Read this on the side while taking AP Statistics in high school and it gave me the intuition that the class textbook didn&#x27;t. Particularly love the emphasis on study design.
lupire5 个月前
Blog post is 2017, but the book is 4th (and latest) edition 2007, year before first author Freedman died, 1st edition published 1978, which fits the cartoon illustrations.<p>Table of contents and section 1:<p><a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;homepages.dcc.ufmg.br&#x2F;~assuncao&#x2F;EstatCC&#x2F;Slides&#x2F;Extra&#x2F;FPPExpObs.pdf" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;homepages.dcc.ufmg.br&#x2F;~assuncao&#x2F;EstatCC&#x2F;Slides&#x2F;Extra...</a>
throwaway815235 个月前
Oh this is a really good book. I&#x27;ve had it in my want-to-read pile for years. I will read the review now.
kjellsbells5 个月前
Awesome as FP&amp;P is, I still think there is a gap in the market for a stats book for non technical students.<p>I have a mental image of a Tufte-like book that aims to profoundly sharpen the students&#x27; BS-detector. That is, teach the student by deliberately showing broken things, and then guide the reader: can they spot how things are broken? What might they try to fix first? How might these fixes themselves have flaws? How might people try to hide issues? And so on.<p>Its my assertion that non technical people have, or can be trained to have, excellent BS detection skills even if they dont speak the mathematical languages.<p>The worst outcome, one we have today, is that those students are dazzled and confused by the mathematical discourse, but believe they have to obey, so they end up believing in a formulaic Statistics God that is fed p values and other detritus and spits out Insight in return: when in fact, it does nothing of the sort.
j7ake5 个月前
Great book to go through the exercises!
evertedsphere5 个月前
excellent domain name