Paperback, 304 pages
English language
Published Jan. 12, 2014 by W. W. Norton Company.
Now and then I have had to explain some statistical concept to someone who was smart but innumerate. Books like this one are an inspiration for such an endeavor, but it is surprising how much verbiage is sometimes necessary to explain the simplest equation.
This book largely focuses on (often humorously) explaining statistics intuitively and demonstrating the huge variety of ways that Statistics is used and misused. Baseball stats are mentioned multiple times throughout the book to help make analogies. I don't know anything about baseball, but I didn't find these segues too distracting.
This book explains the Gambler's fallacy, the Monty Hall problem, how information can (and can't) be extracted from population samples, how DNA evidence is used/abused, and a variety of other Stats-based topics. I feel well-acquainted with the term "null hypothesis" now.
I wish I had read this before taking Stats in school.
