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Wednesday, February 2, 2011

It’s a Numbers Game

9780520238305It’s informative, entertaining, empowering and definitely engaging. Joel Best in this book has managed to put across a subject that had all the potential to become drab and boring, in a way, that makes the reader feel smarter than he/she might be. And that is the most astounding part about the book; it makes the study of statistics and NUMBERS enjoyable and comprehensive. The contents are compiled in a logical, neat, easy to understand manner. At places there seems an overdose of examples, but they only make the book more interesting and feasible to understand.

Our culture depends on numbers and treats them seriously. Even when we suspect that our statistics are flawed, we realise we can’t get along without figures. Our world today is too complicated to comprehend without resorting to numbers; we need statistics to make sense of what’s happening and to make choices. Best confronts us with the lunacy of statistical goof ups, some serious manipulations that might be made to distort views and the melodrama in numbers preferred by advocates and often media as well. lies and statisticsHis examples are well researched upon and easy to relate to. His immaculate and smart decoding of all statistics, at times brings you face to face with your own incompetency in statistical knowledge. That is when you realise, it’s not our statistical illiteracy but our lack of observation of the apparent, obvious flaws in the statistics we are being fed, that is the handicap.

Figures may not always be valid or meaningful and this book is a brilliant guide to learn to tell the difference between ones that are and aren’t. the book widens your view and scope of interpreting and analysing STATS, to get the actual dimensions of the story that the numbers are conveying.

Read more:

 

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Guest Blogger – Tapshi Dhanda

1 comment:

  1. this book really helped me out.Very enjoyable and clearly written.A must read for students!

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