Numbers Rule Your World: The Hidden Influence of Probabilities and Statistics on Everything You Do by Kaiser Fung (PDF)

Description

WHAT ARE THE ODDS YOU’LL WIN THE LOTTERY? How long will your kids wait in line at Disney World? Who decides that “standardized tests” are fair? Why do highway engineers build slow-moving ramps? What does it mean, statistically, to be an “Average Joe”? NUMBERS RULE YOUR WORLD In the popular tradition of eye-opening bestsellers like Freakonomics, The Tipping Point, and Super Crunchers, this fascinating book from renowned statistician and blogger Kaiser Fung takes you inside the hidden world of facts and figures that affect you every day, in every way. These are the statistics that rule your life, your job, your commute, your vacation, your food, your health, your money, and your success. This is how engineers calculate your quality of living, how corporations determine your needs, and how politicians estimate your opinions. These are the numbers you never think about-even though they play a crucial role in every single aspect of your life. What you learn may surprise you, amuse you, or even enrage you. But there’s one thing you won’t be able to deny: Numbers Rule Your World…”An easy read with a big benefit.” ―Fareed Zakaria, CNN “For those who have anxiety about how organization data-mining is impacting their world, Kaiser Fung pulls back the curtain to reveal the good and the bad of predictive analytics.” ―Ian Ayres,Yale professor and author of Super Crunchers: Why Thinking By Numbers is the New Way to Be Smart “A book that engages us with stories that a journalist would write, the compelling stories behind the stories as illuminated by the numbers, and the dynamics that the numbers reveal.” ―John Sall, Executive Vice President, SAS Institute “Little did I suspect, when I picked up Kaiser Fung’s book, that I would become so entranced by it – an illuminating and accessible exploration of the power of statistical analysis for those of us who have no prior training in a field that he explores so ably.” ―Peter Clarke, author of Keynes: The Rise, Fall, and Return of the 20th Century’s Most Influential Economist”A tremendous book. . . . If you want to understand how to use statistics, how to think with numbers and yet to do this without getting lost in equations, if you’ve been looking for the book to unlock the door to logical thinking about problems, well, you will be pleased to know that you are holding that book in your hands.” ―Daniel Finkelstein, Executive Editor, The Times of London”I thoroughly enjoyed this accessible book and enthusiastically recommend it to anyone looking to understand and appreciate the role of statistics and data analysis in solving problems and in creating a better world.” ―Michael Sherman, Texas A&M University, American Statistician

User’s Reviews

Editorial Reviews: From the Publisher Kaiser Fung is a statistician with more than a decade of experience in applying statistical methods to unlocking the relationship between advertising and customer behaviors. His blog, “Junk Charts,” pioneered the genre of critically examining data and graphics in the mass media. Since 2005, “Junk Charts” has received rave reviews from Science magazine, the Guardian, Yahoo!, and Stanford University Libraries. He is an adjunct professor at New York University where he teaches practical statistics to professionals, and holds statistics, business, and engineering degrees from Cambridge, Harvard, and Princeton Universities. Fung is also a fellow of the Royal Statistics Society. About the Author Kaiser Fung is a statistician with more than a decade of experience in applying statistical methods to unlocking the relationship between advertising and customer behaviors. His blog, “Junk Charts,” pioneered the genre of critically examining data and graphics in the mass media. Since 2005, “Junk Charts” has received rave reviews from Science magazine, the Guardian, Yahoo!, and Stanford University Libraries. He is an adjunct professor at New York University where he teaches practical statistics to professionals, and holds statistics, business, and engineering degrees from Cambridge, Harvard, and Princeton Universities. Fung is also a fellow of the Royal Statistics Society.

Reviews from Amazon users which were colected at the time this book was published on the website:

⭐This is a fun and interesting look at a series of real-world problems and challenges, and how statistics are applied to address these issues. It’s very well written…not at all technical…but shows you how everyday circumstances, which usually we take for granted, are in-fact governed by probability and the science of statistics. Each chapter in the book takes one incident — say traffic management — and examines the underlying statistics, typically revealing some insightful truths about the issue; truths that are often counter intuitive and certainly not well understood. Sometimes statistics wins out, sometimes not. If you read this book, you’ll being to see that much or our day-to-day activities are surrounded by probability and statistics.Read the “Disney” chapter on how they solved the “wait time” problem. Classic. Good read. Recommended.

⭐Such an interesting and fun read, which I’m both a math/numbers nerd and a psychology geek… Finding something that hits both ends of the spectrum while not making it feel like a textbook, well – It certainly deserves 5/5 from me. I am not yet done with the read, as I actually am reading a handful of things but I did lose a full day reading this when originally only planned to read first few pages to get a feel for it then return to another psychology book I was reading.

⭐Had freakonomics never been written I might have absolutely loved this book. But freakonomics was written, and this is in that genre but not as captivating. The information is equally good, but the stories don’t draw you in as much. If you’re a “layman’s stats junkie”, you’ll like this. If you liked freakonomics, you’ll like this, just not as much.

⭐I must confess I had higher expectations from this book coming from the reviews and the title. I thought it should give more in depth information about different strategies on statistics and less story telling. I wanted to read a book about statistics with some stories backing up the facts, not long stories about hurricane disasters in Florida and different ways athletes can dope themselves.Well, after reading two great books on statistics: “Predictive Analytics” and “Super Crunchers” I have only one word to describe Numbers Rule Your World:Average.

⭐Mr. Fung has done his homework. He has taken serious issues that continue to make headlines, like doping among elite athletes or why residents continue to move to disaster prone areas, and reveals the truth behind them. I would recommend this to anyone interested in reading up on these issues or finding out why we often miss the full view of most controversial situations…and statistics is at the heart of it all.

⭐I bought this as a gift (my son requested it) and the the cover is put on wrong! Also there is no dust jacket which could have at least made it appear normal. It was also a bit dirty but did wipe clean.

⭐First, this was a college textbook for me.I found most chapters great…but the end felt like beating a dead horse. The overall content has a solid point.

⭐as an engineer who uses statistics without a lot of formal training, I appreciated the non-technical nature of the book. It would be an overstatement to call the stories “inspiring” but they do – very usefully – point out some cases where statistics made significant impacts on their organizations.And it’s easy to read. Recommended.

⭐You will gain a great insight about statistics, but there is a bit of a chance that you might have read some of the topics covered.

⭐It was delivered really fast and it is hard cover. Stores sell it double the price and soft cover. Excellent book.

⭐Great thank you

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