andrew_gelman_stats andrew_gelman_stats-2011 andrew_gelman_stats-2011-596 knowledge-graph by maker-knowledge-mining
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Introduction: Dikran Karagueuzian writes: I am in the process of choosing a textbook for a junior- or senior-level undergraduate two-semester sequence in probability and statistics. I would be obliged if you could recommend one which is free (or at least cheap), or inquire with your blog readers for such a recommendation. The course has been taught successfully in the past using Mathematical Statistics with Applications, by Wackerly, Mendenhall, and Scheaffer. Also at roughly the right level is Probability and Statistics by deGroot and Schervish. However, the current edition of the first text now lists for $217, and I find myself embarrassed to ask students at a public university to pay prices at this level. The main item on my wish list, other than the textbook being cheap and at the right level, is that it should be possible to teach the course by following the book closely for the entire year. (I have never taught the course before and have spent several years away from the universit
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1 Dikran Karagueuzian writes: I am in the process of choosing a textbook for a junior- or senior-level undergraduate two-semester sequence in probability and statistics. [sent-1, score-0.616]
2 I would be obliged if you could recommend one which is free (or at least cheap), or inquire with your blog readers for such a recommendation. [sent-2, score-0.419]
3 The course has been taught successfully in the past using Mathematical Statistics with Applications, by Wackerly, Mendenhall, and Scheaffer. [sent-3, score-0.618]
4 Also at roughly the right level is Probability and Statistics by deGroot and Schervish. [sent-4, score-0.323]
5 However, the current edition of the first text now lists for $217, and I find myself embarrassed to ask students at a public university to pay prices at this level. [sent-5, score-0.624]
6 The main item on my wish list, other than the textbook being cheap and at the right level, is that it should be possible to teach the course by following the book closely for the entire year. [sent-6, score-1.167]
7 (I have never taught the course before and have spent several years away from the university in the private sector. [sent-7, score-0.886]
8 Thus, 3 weeks from source A, 4 weeks from source B, and 5 weeks from source C is likely to turn out badly. [sent-8, score-1.542]
9 ) I have looked at online statistics resources like http://statpages. [sent-9, score-0.304]
10 Of course, I could choose one of the two texts mentioned above if nothing turns up. [sent-12, score-0.297]
11 Any help you or your readers could offer would be very much appreciated. [sent-13, score-0.194]
12 My reply: Statistics: What’s the Difference isn’t ready yet, and it’s even further from being ready at the mathematical level you’re looking for. [sent-14, score-0.72]
13 I’ve never actually taught the course you’re talking about–I did take such courses in college but I can’t say I was thrilled with the books we used. [sent-15, score-0.82]
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Introduction: At the Statistics Forum, we highlight a debate about how statistics should be taught in high schools. Check it out and then please leave your comments there.
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Introduction: A Brooks op-ed in the New York Times (circulation approximately 1.5 million): People at the extremes are happier than political moderates. . . . none, it seems, are happier than the Tea Partiers . . . Jay Livingston on his blog (circulation approximately 0 (rounding to the nearest million)), giving data from the 2009-2010 General Social Survey, which is the usual place people turn to for population data on happiness of Americans: The GSS does not offer “bitter” or “Tea Party” as choices, but extreme conservatives are nearly three times as likely as others to be “not too happy.” Livingston reports that the sample size for “Extremely Conservative” here is 80. Thus the standard error for that green bar on the right is approx sqrt(0.3*0.7/80)=0.05. So how could Brooks have made such a mistake? I can think of two possibilities: 1. Brooks has some other data source that directly addresses the happiness of supporters of the Tea Party movement. 2. Brooks looked a
Introduction: I had a brief email exchange with Jeff Leek regarding our recent discussions of replication, criticism, and the self-correcting process of science. Jeff writes: (1) I can see the problem with serious, evidence-based criticisms not being published in the same journal (and linked to) studies that are shown to be incorrect. I have been mostly seeing these sorts of things show up in blogs. But I’m not sure that is a bad thing. I think people read blogs more than they read the literature. I wonder if this means that blogs will eventually be a sort of “shadow literature”? (2) I think there is a ton of bad literature out there, just like there is a ton of bad stuff on Google. If we focus too much on the bad stuff we will be paralyzed. I still manage to find good papers despite all the bad papers. (3) I think one positive solution to this problem is to incentivize/publish referee reports and give people credit for a good referee report just like they get credit for a good paper. T
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