The Joy of Statistics

The vast majority of statistics books delineate techniques used to analyze collected data. The Joy of Statistics is not one of these books. It consists of a series of 42 short stories, each illustrating how statistical methods applied to data produce insight and solutions to the questions the data were collected to answer. Real-life and sometimes artificial data are used to demonstrate the often painless method and magic of statistics. In addition, the text contains brief histories of the evolution of statistical methods and a number of brief biographies of the most famous statisticians of the 20th century. Sprinkled throughout are statistical jokes, puzzles and traditional stories. The levels of statistical texts span a spectrum, from elementary to introductory to application to theoretical to advanced mathematical.

This book explores a variety of statistical applications using graphs and plots, along with detailed and intuitive descriptions, and occasionally a bit of 10th grade mathematics. Examples of a few of the topics included among these short stories are pet ownership, gambling games such as roulette, blackjack and lotteries, as well as more serious subjects such as comparison of black/white infant mortality risk, infant birth weight and maternal age, estimation of coronary heart disease risk and racial differences in Hodgkin disease. The statistical descriptions of these topics are in many cases accompanied by easy to understand explanations labelled How it Works.


I recommend The Joy of Statistics to those who want to begin studying statistics or who need a quick refresher book. Dr Selvin does an exemplary job of explaining basic concepts without overwhelming the reader with jargon or dense details. -- ANNA MILLER, AC Review of books

The format is some 40 or so short chapters...the reader is consistently presented with topics and questions that are specifically not conventional compared to the often rather identikit ones offered and discussed in ordinary textbooks...In the hands of a thoughtful undergraduate, this may well inspire curiosity for the wider subject of statistics. A teacher will certainly find a fresh wrinkle or three to keep a motivated group engaged for a number of classes. -- Andrew Ruddle, Mathematics Today

The Joy of Statistics provides a short, accessible and, at times, light-hearted glimpse into the vast world of statistics. This book delivers the general background needed to begin understanding statistical methods and how to apply them alongside an assortment of anecdotes, jokes, and historical information...I recommend The Joy of Statistics to those who want to begin studying statistics or who need a quick refresher book. Dr Selvin does an exemplary job of explaining basic concepts without overwhelming the reader with jargon or dense details. Thus, readers from a diverse set of statistical backgrounds can find assistance from this book. -- Anna Miller, AC Review of Books

This treasury of statistical anecdotes offers 41 engaging yet substantive examples of statistics and probability as found in real-life settings. One remarkable feature is the surprising range of everyday contexts from which Selvin draws material, turning now to a TV show, then to a legal case, and often to his own specialty of public health and epidemiology. Another attractive feature is that the text lucidly explains the subtle differences and implications of similar but different concepts: correlation and association, relative risk and odds ratio, to name a few...this book deserves welcome as a supplementary introduction to the discipline. -- S-T Kim, North Carolina A&T State University