Naked Statistics

Stripping the Dread from the Data

By: Charles Wheelan

Narrated by: Jonathan Davis

Length: 10 hrs and 48 mins

Publisher's summary

Audie Award Finalist, Business/Educational, 2014

Once considered tedious, the field of statistics is rapidly evolving into a discipline Hal Varian, chief economist at Google, has actually called "sexy". From batting averages and political polls to game shows and medical research, the real-world application of statistics continues to grow by leaps and bounds. How can we catch schools that cheat on standardized tests? How does Netflix know which movies you'll like? What is causing the rising incidence of autism? As best-selling author Charles Wheelan shows us in Naked Statistics, the right data and a few well-chosen statistical tools can help us answer these questions and more.

For those who slept through Stats 101, this book is a lifesaver. Wheelan strips away the arcane and technical details and focuses on the underlying intuition that drives statistical analysis. He clarifies key concepts such as inference, correlation, and regression analysis, reveals how biased or careless parties can manipulate or misrepresent data, and shows us how brilliant and creative researchers are exploiting the valuable data from natural experiments to tackle thorny questions.

You’ll encounter clever Schlitz Beer marketers leveraging basic probability, an International Sausage Festival illuminating the tenets of the central limit theorem, and a head-scratching choice from the famous game show Let’s Make a Deal - and you’ll come away with insights each time. With the wit, accessibility, and sheer fun that turned Naked Economics into a best seller, Wheelan defies the odds yet again by bringing another essential, formerly unglamorous discipline to life.

Download the accompanying reference guide.

©2013 Charles Wheelan (P)2013 Audible, Inc.

Please describe the graphs!

I really enjoy the writing style of this book, and I really like the narrator. But there are a lot of graphs, and there is no description of them whatsoever. The narrator simply says "here is a graph", and I have no idea what the graph looks like or what it indicates. If you can, go for this one in print. If you don't have the vision abilities to read it in print yourself, see if you can find a friend to describe the graphs to you from a print copy. Too bad!

Funny. Accessible. Mostly entry level concepts.

An accessible, lighthearted, primer on basic concepts in statistics. Topics include: basic probability, polling, central limit theorem, and regression analysis. Excellent use of case studies to animate the material.

I suppose there's more sublime pickings out there on Audible, but this book does well what it promises on its front cover.

Too Many Future References--"we'll get to it later

What did you like best about Naked Statistics? What did you like least?

Interesting subject matter. Delivery OK. But not written for the spoken word and author makes multiple references to future explanations. He creates a problem set, then says he will explain what it means in a future chapter. He does this about half dozen times and it gets old quickly.

Just read the original

Why did this book sound familiar? Oh, because most of the stories were cited from a book I’ve already read. This book seems to be a stripped down clunky version of “Thinking, Fast and Slow” by daniel kahneman. I did listen all the way through however.

It is not easy to follow mathematical formulas

It is a good book, but in my case, I would prefer a hard copy to have a better understanding.

Wonderful trip on statistics

Content, voice, Ruth, examples, everything is fun and interesting, finally you get eager for more. A must-have for this information age beginning...

interesting analysis

like the author I've always done bad with abstract math but good with the practical stuff, I thought I was terrible at math until i took a statistics class in HS and aced it, so I was very excited to dive into this. he went in depth about how data gets manipulated but also how to get really good data. overall a good overview of the science of statistics.

pretty good primer on basic data science for noobs

This helps getting used to vocabulary and basic formulas used regularly in business intelligence and data analytics.

Overwritten with a couple gems

A couple explanations of concepts are great and so are the practical examples, but they are lost in an overwritten text where too much time is spent on the easy stuff.

Author has a good sense of humor and sound convictions (appreciated in this field) just a poor literary structure. This shouldn't be organized like a Gladwell book, it should be organized like a book of 2-3 page short stories.

Enlightening for PhD students

Not only should higher education learners read this book to know what else is out there in the realm of stats, but I recommend this book to all who would like to know the super weapon we use to make reasonable decisions every day.