The Cartoon Introduction to Statistics - Softcover

Klein, Grady; Dabney, Alan

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0809033593 ISBN 13: 9780809033591

Publisher: Hill and Wang, 2013

Synopsis

The Cartoon Introduction to Statistics is the most imaginative and accessible introductory statistics course you'll ever take. Employing an irresistible cast of dragon-riding Vikings, lizard-throwing giants, and feuding aliens, the renowned illustrator Grady Klein and the award-winning statistician Alan Dabney teach you how to collect reliable data, make confident statements based on limited information, and judge the usefulness of polls and the other numbers that you're bombarded with every day. If you want to go beyond the basics, they've created the ultimate resource: "The Math Cave," where they reveal the more advanced formulas and concepts.

Timely, authoritative, and hilarious, The Cartoon Introduction to Statistics is an essential guide for anyone who wants to better navigate our data-driven world.

About this title

About the Authors

Grady Klein is a cartoonist, an illustrator, and an animator. He is the coauthor and illustrator of The Cartoon Introduction to Economics: Volume One: Microeconomics and The Cartoon Introduction to Economics: Volume Two: Macroeconomics, and the creator of the Lost Colony series of graphic novels. He coauthored The Cartoon Introduction to Statistics with Alan Dabney. He lives in Princeton, New Jersey, with his wife and two children.

Alan Dabney, Ph.D., is an award-winning associate professor of statistics at Texas A&M University. He is the coauthor of The Cartoon Introduction to Statistics. He lives in College Station, Texas, with his wife and three children.

Reviews

You’ve gotta give it to comics-creator Klein. He’s entirely undaunted by the dreariest subject matter. In two volumes of The Cartoon Introduction to Economics, he (and economist Yoram Bauman) made the dismal science sorta festive. Now, with the help of statistician Dabney, he makes statistics pretty painless, too—for instance, by relegating mathematical explanations and details to the all-too-­appropriately named appendix, The Math Cave! (every time math is mentioned in the main text, someone runs away, screaming). Amusing exemplary setups—trying to ascertain the number of fish in a lake or the average length of the worms used to catch them—afford wisecracking opportunities, while the book’s first half outlines random sampling, generating descriptions of the data in the sample, and checking for mistakes. Using such tools as the central limit theorem, inference via probability calculations, and testing hypotheses to get to confidently drawn conclusions is the meat of the second half (the wisecracks continue, fortunately). Stressing that what statistics aims for is probability, not certainty, this is a nifty reference and refresher. --Ray Olson

Edition details

• Publisher: Hill and Wang
• Publication date: 2013
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0809033593
• ISBN 13: 9780809033591
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 240