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Allen B. Downey

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Allen Downey is a Professor Emeritus at Olin College and the author of a series of freetextbooks related to software and data science, including Think Python, Think Bayes, and Think Complexity, which are also published by O’Reilly Media. His blog, Probably Overthinking It, features articles on Bayesian probability and statistics. He holds a Ph.D. in computer science from U.C. Berkeley, and M.S. and B.S. degrees from MIT.

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Allen B. Downey's Blog: Probably Overthinking It

Attention, Chinese Readers

The Chinese edition of Probably Overthinking It is available now (also here)!

If you have the Chinese edition, there are two sections you won’t get to read — so I am including them here.

Here is an excerpt from Chapter 3, including the deleted paragraph:

In the Present

The women surveyed in 1990 rejected the childbearing example of their mothers emphatically. On average, each woman had 2.3 fewer c

Combine Editions
Allen B. Downey’s books

Average rating: 4.0 · 3,256 ratings · 393 reviews · 36 distinct works • Similar authors

	Think Python 4.13 avg rating — 1,669 ratings — 57 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	Think Stats 3.65 avg rating — 468 ratings — published 2011 — 14 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	Think Bayes: Bayesian Statistics in Python 3.94 avg rating — 287 ratings — published 2012 — 14 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	Think Complexity: Complexity Science and Computational Modeling 3.91 avg rating — 245 ratings — published 2009 — 13 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	Think Java: How to Think Like a Computer Scientist 3.91 avg rating — 169 ratings — published 2016 — 19 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	Probably Overthinking It: How to Use Data to Answer Questions, Avoid Statistical Traps, and Make Better Decisions 4.23 avg rating — 95 ratings	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	The Little Book of Semaphores: The Ins and Outs of Concurrency Control and Common Mistakes 4.39 avg rating — 80 ratings — published 2009	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	Think DSP: Digital Signal Processing in Python really liked it 4.00 avg rating — 45 ratings — 4 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	Think Data Structures: Algorithms and Information Retrieval in Java 3.46 avg rating — 37 ratings — 8 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	Think OS: A Brief Introduction to Operating Systems really liked it 4.00 avg rating — 29 ratings — published 2014 — 5 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars

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Clearing the Air: A Hopeful Guide to Solving Climate Change — in 50 Questions and Answers

by Hannah Ritchie

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Mar 24, 2026 05:43AM

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The Gales of November: The Untold Story of the Edmund Fitzgerald

by John U. Bacon

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Think Like a Pancreas: A Practical Guide to Managing Diabetes with Insulin

by Gary Scheiner

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Feb 23, 2026 10:42AM

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Allen B. Downey wrote a new blog post Attention, Chinese Readers The Chinese edition of Probably Overthinking It is available now (also here)!If you have the Chinese edition, there are two sections you won’t get to Read more of this blog post »
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Quotes by Allen B. Downey (?)

“For all live births, the mean pregnancy length is 38.6 weeks, the standard deviation is 2.7 weeks, which means we should expect deviations of 2-3 weeks to be common.”
― Allen B. Downey, Think Stats

tags: explanations-math

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