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.

Statistic meaning in common sense!

Very useful information about statistic tools without using heavy mathematics in explanation. Until now I am using these tools without understanding the meaning behind them. The author has done a good job explaining them using common sense.

The book does exactly what the title states.

This book does a good job of explaining what statistics is good at doing, and how statistics can be used incorrectly.

Excellent Listen to understand Power of Statistics

Jonathan's voice (the narrator) is very pleasing to listen to despite the slightly academic and research based content. The book itself covered several statistical tools into how they can be used efficiently as well as how they can be abused, sometimes willingly. Many contemporary social events such as opinion polls, medical researches, regression analysis are presented in an entertaining yet academically sound fashion. I have no formal training in statistics, despite which I thoroughly enjoyed the book.

Very basic story.

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

If you are newcomer and have not been educated in basic statistics, it would be interesting for you. Otherwise it can only help you to make up the ideas that you should have built just by yourself.

Great but Should be read!

This book was amazing but even with the attached pdf of figures retention of the information provided in this book would have been better read versus listened too. Great book otherwise. I highly recommend everyone read it.

Thank you for a great book!

I want to relearn statistics and this book not only helped me start to relearn statistical terminology and procedures, it was engaging and motivating.

Informative and funny

Yes funny!!! well definitely smile inducing

Statistics and its real world application is well explained and so well read that it feels like a conversation with a friend.

Often textbooks/ non fiction is read in such dull tones that it is an insomnia cure. Not this one!

Great book to learn statistics!!

Great audio book for learning statistics 101, but the accompanying PDF could've been better organized, at least by chapters.

A Friendly UnIverse for Non-Experts

I was pleasantly surprised to find so much pleasure in reading/listening to this book on statistics. I would like the author to write more books on many other subjects. Make ‘em “naked” and I’d probably read ‘em. Thanks to Mr Wheelan for making this subject accessible to many more people.

Many of the detractors of this book seem to be experts. Well if you’re NOT an expert I can recommend this book if you have an interest or need to study statistics. I’m super impressed with the narration as well. A writer, a conveyor of knowledge AND a narrator!? Triple threat! Well done!

I bought the book for school before realizing it was an audio book. I’m keeping both.

There is no absolute truth

Very insightful. A good reminder that there is no absolute truth when we try to measure "things". There are always two sides of the story for a metric