Andrew Gelman, a statistician at Columbia University, offers some reading suggestions for fans of statistics (no, they are not as numerous as fans of, say, Harry Potter, but still …). On his list: The Bill James Baseball Abstracts, Judgement Under Uncertainty: Heuristics and Biases, How Animals Work, The Honest Rainmaker and How to Talk So Kids Will Listen and Listen So Kids Will Talk. ”The math that we can all understand from high school is just not going to be enough to capture the interesting features of real world patterns,” says Gelman. “Statistics, however, can capture a lot more patterns at a less technical level, because statistics, unlike mathematics, is all about uncertainty and variation. So all the books that I thought of, they’re all non-technical, but they’re all about variation and comparison and patterns.”
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About Freakonomics
Steven D. Levitt is a professor of economics at the University of Chicago.
Stephen J. Dubner is an author and journalist who lives in New York City.
Levitt and Dubner are the authors of Freakonomics and SuperFreakonomics. This blog, begun in 2005, is meant to keep the conversation going.
Books
SuperFreakonomics: The Illustrated Edition
The new illustrated version of SuperFreakonomics is an oversized edition that takes the original book and explodes it with hundreds of photos, illustrations, charts, and other tantalizing extras. Available on the iBookstore »
SuperFreakonomics
SuperFreakonomics, published in 2009, was an instant world-wide best-seller, debuting at No. 2 on the N.Y. Times best-seller list. Available on the iBookstore »
Freakonomics
Freakonomics, published in 2005, became an instant cultural phenomenon; it has been translated into 35 languages and sold more than 4 million copies. Available on the iBookstore »
Freakonomics: The Movie
Freakonomics: The Movie, a documentary film based on the best-selling book, brings together some of the world's most acclaimed directors, including Alex Gibney, Rachel Grady and Heidi Ewing, Morgan Spurlock, Eugene Jarecki and Seth Gordon. The film will be available on DVD on January 18, 2011.
- Watch the Trailer
- Variety calls the film “a revelatory trip into complex, innovative ideas and altered perspectives.”
- IndieWire says that “a television series or a sequel could follow without much resistance.”
Freakonomics Radio
Freakonomics FAQ, No. 1: In which Levitt and Dubner field questions from the public and hold forth on everything from dating strategies and rock-and-roll accordion music to whether different nations have different economic identities. Oh, and also: is it worthwhile to vote?
January 20, 2011
Recent Posts
January 21
(6)
Zyzmor’s Revenge?
In the SuperFreakonomics section about various "birth effects," we cited some research about the downside of having a surname that begins with a letter late in the alphabet: It is common practice, especially among economists, to co-write academic papers and list the authors alphabetically by last name. What does this mean for an economist who happened to be born Albert Zyzmor instead of, say, Albert Aab? Two (real) economists addressed this question and found that, all else being equal, Dr. Aab would be more likely to gain tenure at a top university, become a fellow in the Econometric Society (hooray!), and even win the Nobel Prize.
January 21
(21)
The Economics of Tiger Parenting
When my daughter Anna was 7, she told me she desperately wanted a dog. I looked her in the eye and said, "You can have a dog if you publish an article in an academic peer-reviewed journal." I wasn't kidding. I really, really didn't want a dog because I thought it would disrupt our family routine, which included large dollops of what Amy Chua's controversial new book, Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother, refers to as Tiger parenting.
January 21
(7)
Predicting What You’ll Want to Eat
A collaboration between Kraft and Intel has produced a machine that scans your face to predict what you might want to eat (or, more precisely, what it can sell you to eat).
January 21
(11)
Who You Calling a Bimbo?
A while back, we did a podcast about whether the NFL might someday sell corporate sponsorship on its jerseys, the way soccer clubs around the world do, and even Major League Soccer clubs in the U.S.
January 20
(17)
The Economics of Book Covers
Marginal decisions to increase the net of revenue minus costs arise in non-profit organizations as much as in companies. The designers of a recent book, Peter Leeson's The Invisible Hook (Princeton University Press, 2009), recognized this in picking a cover.
Archive
Comments of the Moment
“ Another side of this issue is that there is a negative affect to these sponsorships. Would you buy products with the same brand name that is on the front of a team you despise? I bet that's why in Eurpoe, huge companies sponsor the entire league, or why some companies sponsor both sides of a heated rivalry.”
Who You Calling a Bimbo?
“ On the other extreme side (and from personal experience), I find that while perseverance is wonderful, sometimes it's also a skill to know when to give up and move on. Often times, I find myself continuing on a dead end despite knowing better because from the back of my mind, I have to keep trying.”
The Economics of Tiger Parenting
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3 Comments
I was captivated by “Super Crunchers,” the descriptions of how anyone can use huge sets of data to make predictions (what is the best title for a book, when will a baby be born). It doesn’t hurt that the author, Ian Ayres, contributes to this blog.
— Carl Lavin“… statistics, unlike mathematics, is all about uncertainty and variation.”
I hope Gelman’s intention is that the word “all” is the part that’s unlike mathematics; otherwise he has a gross misunderstanding of what mathematics is (or perhaps is unaware of anything beyond “[t]he math that we can all understand from high school”).
— Greg@Greg: I strongly expect that Dr. Gelman knows about mathematics, given that he has an S.B. in mathematics (and an S.B. in physics) from some little school called MIT.
Gelman’s writing for a general audience here (and most members of a general audience haven’t, say, taken courses in non-Euclidean geometry or diff eqs). He made explicit that he is using “mathematics” as “the mathematics that we can all understand from high school” (where most people stop with basic geometry or algebra II).
BTW, if you want to find out about who Gelman actually is (instead of casting aspersions on him), just follow the handy link the Freakonomics folks provided; that leads directly to his page, which has his CV, which would then tell you that, yep, he knows his math.
— twicker