A couple of days ago, my younger brother, who just started his first year in university in the Fall, was complaining to me about the woes of student life; in particular, the obsession with grades and the paradoxical lack of willpower to work for them. Having taken an accounting class together, his friend recounted to him that it was, “The sketchiest 90 I ever received.” Let’s break that down for a moment. Humble brag? Yes, but what he really meant was that his friend was blindly memorizing formulas, plugging and chugging without any idea how they were derived and why they are meaningful. 

Does that sound familiar? How many of you have had similar experiences in math class? I know I have. Not just math, but in science, language arts, history… sometimes it feels like we are just memorizing facts in isolation without an understanding of their greater purpose. To be fair, I’ve taken statistics classes that feel no different, a series of formulas that need to be applied to raw data. What makes statistics inherently different, however, is that unlike calculus or algebra courses, which often teach skills in isolation of their applications (to which I will argue there is intrinsic value in knowing and learning, another post perhaps) statistics IS applied mathematics. Every formula, number, distribution test…etc. is meant to clarify and add meaning to everyday phenomena (though, when wielded improperly, can have the opposite effect).

Statistics are everywhere – from which are the most influential YouTubers, to presidential polling to free throw percentages. What I love about this book is that it focuses on building intuition and making statistics accessible to the everyday reader. A quote by Andrejs Dunkels shared by the author, “It’s easy to lie with statistics, but it’s hard to tell the truth without them.”