More reviews from the blogosphere.
I'm glad Andrew Gelman read the book: he's not one to get addicted to pop-statistics books. He noted:
I liked that Kaiser is sending the message that this all makes sense: rather than trying to portray probability as counterintuitive and puzzle-like, he's saying that if you think about things in the right way, they will become clear.
He made an interesting point about methods versus people. And he rightly surmised that I focused on the people because it's hard to make methods engaging to the reader, unless the reader wants to read about methods. Another reason is that in practice, many methods yield similar results -- statistically different but practically the same, and it's the people and their motivations that ultimately determine the course of action.
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Christian Robert also wrote a nice review. Both he and Andrew recognize that my objective is to bring young people into the field of statistics, and to convert stubborn adults who think statistics is boring. Christian notices a difference in style compared to Taleb:
The overall tone of Numbers rule your world is pleasant and engaging, at the other end of the stylistic spectrum from Taleb’s Black Swan. Fung’s point is obviously the opposite of Taleb’s: he is showing the reader how well statistical modelling can explain for apparently paradoxical behaviour.
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Len Testa, who creates touring plans for Walt Disney World nuts using statistics and operations research techniques, reviewed the book on his TouringPlans.com blog:
Coincidentally, I’d read SuperFreakonomics last week. Numbers Rule Your World is written in a similar, easy to read manner, and focuses on statistics instead of economics. If you liked Freakonomics you’ll definitely enjoy Numbers.
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