The Cartoon Introduction to Statistics
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