Reading Between the Numbers: Statistical Thinking in Everyday Life

by Joseph Tal

This quirky, fast-paced excursion through the world of statistics brings basic statistical concepts down to earth for general readers by showing how statistics are applied in our everyday lives. Drawing on such diverse examples as how pills are manufactured, elections are forecast, and chess tournaments are structured, psychologist Joseph Tal familiarizes readers with variables, means, medians, scales of measurement, sampling, estimating, and other stock-in-trade tools of the statistician. An unusually lively, informal review of statistical concepts Reading Between the
• Features dozens of fascinating, often whimsical examples drawn from real life and literature, and 100 vivid graphs and tables
• Makes statistics fun and easy for general readers interested in numbers
• Is the ideal quick-study guide for those who need to learn statistical methods for their jobs
• Focuses on the psychology behind statistics, rather than problem-solving • Is based on the author’s popular professional workshops and seminars

Genres: Science, Mathematics

285 pages, Paperback

First published December 20, 2000

Reviews

[செந்தில் குமார் · Rating 2 out of 5]

Who is the targeted audience for this book?
Seems author only thought of initial few chapters and rest were just concocted by the book publishers.
Casual reader will find it less interesting and math enthusiasts will find nothing new. Anecdotes do more harm than help. Not sure why every topic has to have such different examples and back stories.
The first few chapters are not bad, but that last few chapters are just pain to read.

[Regina Cattus · Rating 2 out of 5]

I bought this book out of curiosity and also because statistics interests me. Having done the Statistics GCSE, most of the stuff was drudgingly familiar to me. When Tal then progressed onto the more complex error-calculating stuff, I feel as though he missed some key stages in the teaching process that would allow readers to understand - meaning I don't think it is suitable for the casual reader, as Tal claims. The worst part, however, was the way Tal went on increasingly frequent segues that added little or even confused the point of the chapter (and spoilt the source material for anyone who fancied reading those books). Furthermore, he would often repeat the same thing in slightly different ways again and again in the same chapter, as though to fill up space, while claiming that it was a different point to be made. This book was bad enough to bring me to tears of frustration, and I wouldn't really recommend it to the general reader. It's not good.

[Bruce · Rating 1 out of 5]

Not much to say here. I was tremendously disappointed by this book, inasmuch as I had hoped to find in it another volume of math for polymaths. No such luck. This was merely a dull, basic intro-to-statistics text which used Stendahl quotes as a gimmick. Really failed to connect on the "so what?" level, despite striving to make the point that statistics is basically philosophy extrapolated through math.