Statistics
by David Freedman, Robert Pisani, Roger Purves · first published 1978
73% recommend27% neutral
Why HN recommends it
Gentle, intuition-first intro to statistics with real-world examples, cartoons, and chapter exercises on real data; suits beginners and self-learners who want less heavy math.
Summarised by Claude from recommending comments
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Yankoff, you might want to be more specific. Intro statistics in general, or for computer scientists, or scientists, or looking to learn R at the same time? I liked Freedman, Pisani, and Purves [1], and have TA'ed using McClave, Sincich, and Mendenhall [2]. You…
on “Statistical Formulas For Programmers” ↗I agree with this suggestion. It took me a year to slowly absorb the entire book of Statistics [0] including solving all exercises. It's just like walking to school but there is no external supervision. I made a rule to complete one chapter every evening including exercises and sticked to it. [0]:…
on “Ask HN: How do I learn math/physics in my thirties?” ↗Statistics by Freedman et al. All exercises use real data as cases, I learned a lot more from them! https://www.amazon.com/Statistics-4th-David-Freedman/dp/0393...
on “Ask HN: What are your favorite statistics and probability textbooks?” ↗…saying that Harvard's Math 55 should be the model for intro math courses in college. I think the original poster was thinking high school and a target much more like Freedman's text (http://www.amazon.com/Statistics-4th-David-Freedman/dp/03939...). And what Freedman's book does probably better than any other text in the field is teach how to think about statistics. It doesn't have a lot of formalisms, but if can…
on “Torture your data long enough and it'll tell you anything” ↗- "Statistics" by Freedman, Pisani, and Purves: http://www.amazon.com/Statistics-4th-David-Freedman/dp/03939... (but an old edition would be fine) - Any of Wainer's books (the author of the original pdf) (Added later):…
on “The Most Dangerous Equation [pdf]” ↗Statistics by Roger Purves, David Freedman, Robert Pisani Introduction to Linear Algebra, by Gilbert Strang A lot of my learning was self study. These books were very helpful to me.
on “Ask HN: Which mathematics books taught you the most in your career?” ↗It depends how comfortable you are with mathematics. Statistics by David Freedman is a great starting point and does an excellent job of developing intuition without delving deep into the mathematical aspects. Although it may leave you wanting more details on the…
on “Ask HN: What's the best book(s) to grasp statistics?” ↗Unfortunately my favorites are a bit on the mathy side, so you may want wait for other commenters with better advice. But, there are two books I really feel should not be missed. For statistics: "Statistics, Third Edition" David Freedman, Robert Pisani, Roger Purves. For machine learning: "The Elements of Statistical Learning" Trevor Hastie, Robert Tibshirani and Jerome Friedman.
on “Ask HN: I want to learn statistics and data mining” ↗I am loving the Statistics book by Freedman, Pisani, Purves. Maybe it is its slow and steady pace, or may be its real-life examples, or may be the cartoons, or may be the numerous well planned exercises with solutions, or may be…
on “Ask HN: Books like Statistics by Freedman et al.” ↗…maybe broadens their view > What would you have appreciated having been given at that age? Deep math is cool and all, but right now I'm working through a used copy of the Freedman, Pisani and Purves Statistics textbook https://amzn.to/2YVvU6o It's chock full of actual examples from real research and statistics, complete with citations. I just worked through some problem sets today, analyzing some twin studies…
on “Ask HN: Recommend a maths book for a teenager?” ↗Statistics, 4th addition by david freedman. Read it years ago but still remains the most lucid book ive ever read.
on “Ask HN: The book that did it for you in math and/or CS?” ↗Statistics by Freedman, Pisani and Purves. Don't know if I got better but loved the real world examples and cartoons. Does not have too many pre-requisites. Each section presents a tiny concept which is followed…
on “Ask HN: Math books that made you significantly better at math?” ↗…because it selects people with the largest amount of points which easily comes at the expense of post quality. Please read about the bias of controlled, not-randomized studies before you go throwing around statistics you can't interpret. I suggest looking at the tree graph found on page 7 of "Statistics" by Freedman, Pisani, Purves, since you like graphs so much. Coming up with meaningless numbers will only shut up…
on “Why Django Sucks” ↗…plot for enough data points (e.g. 25 years) makes Philips curves just broken. It was a gong moment for me when I came across a short passage discussing its foundedness. * Freedman, Pisani and Purves Statistics, 4th edition (p153)
on “A plan to change how Harvard teaches economics” ↗> Statistics? As in David Freedman's books? Uh, statistics tries to be applied probability with some assumptions, theorems, proofs, results, and applications. E.g., the assumptions for regression analysis that…
on “The new business of AI and how it’s different from traditional software” ↗