4 ms·

To learn statistics, yes, of course. To get psyched up about learning statistics? That's what this article did for him. Sometimes it's just fun to read someo

by loumf 17y ago

To learn statistics, yes, of course. To get psyched up about learning statistics? That's what this article did for him. Sometimes it's just fun to read someone go nuts about something like statistics, and it may give you motivation to go learn more about it so that you can understand the whole thing.

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- skorgu 17y ago
  So how is one to ever know that stats is beautiful if all they see is impenetrable jargon? Where is a good, free, up-to-date resource for doing what Zed covers? We're all busy, accessibility and immediate relevance are common and useful heuristics for deciding what to investigate.
  - AlphaMonkey 17y ago
    I find MIT OCW courses on Statistics a good source of references. Reading books takes time, but you can find some lecture slides and lecture notes there. I, too, found Statistics impenetrable. One solution I found was to learn Statistics from the Electrical Engineering and Computer Science perspective. Instead of weird abstractions, in EE and CS one thinks of more concrete things, like random signals, or data sets. The best way to learn Statistics is to apply it. One problem, though, is that knowing only a little Statistics might be worse than knowing nothing.
    - skorgu 17y ago
      Considering the article is a concrete introduction to statistics with applications and is passionate about your last point you seem to agree with Zed.
tobtoh 17y ago
I agree. The last time I dabbled with statistics was at university and whilst I could see it was useful, it was boring as anything. I couldn't see any really application in my day to day job - after all, besides understanding the difference between mean and medium, what else would I need? But Zed's article, juvenile as it was in tone, had undeniable passion about statistics. And it was enough to keep me reading through the whole article and pay attention to the examples. As it is, I will be doing further reading on statistics and so Zed's article has been incredibly useful to me. "Maybe it's just me, but Statistics is a beautiful field, and such intellectual beauty should be all the "psyching up" one needed." It's just you. Nine out of ten people think statistics are nothing more than boring numbers made up on the spot.
- AlphaMonkey 17y ago
  Nine out of ten people learned Statistics from teachers who knew jack of Statistics. The difference between Statistics and Math is that Statistics is data-oriented and somewhat "experimental". Yeah, I hated Statistics in high-school, but when I learned Information Theory and Statistical Signal Processing, then I understood what one could do with knowledge of Statistics, and what the field is all about. If you can't see the beauty in it, you've probably been taught pseudo-Statistics. Don't feel bad. All the Math that engineering students learn is kind of pseudo-Math. All one learns in high-school is BS. If you want to learn something, here's my advice: i) Don't use modern, over-designed textbooks.. you know... the thick expensive ones with many colors and boxes highlighting the formulas one must memorize. ii) Instead read the classic books from the 1960s, many of which are published by Dover. They look boring at 1st sight, but their content is rich. Another option is to get the old Soviet books from the 1960s, which tend to be forgotten gems. The Russians are the best at marrying theory with application.

by loumf 17y ago

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deleted 17y ago
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skorgu 17y ago
So how is one to ever know that stats is beautiful if all they see is impenetrable jargon? Where is a good, free, up-to-date resource for doing what Zed covers? We're all busy, accessibility and immediate relevance are common and useful heuristics for deciding what to investigate.
- AlphaMonkey 17y ago
  I find MIT OCW courses on Statistics a good source of references. Reading books takes time, but you can find some lecture slides and lecture notes there. I, too, found Statistics impenetrable. One solution I found was to learn Statistics from the Electrical Engineering and Computer Science perspective. Instead of weird abstractions, in EE and CS one thinks of more concrete things, like random signals, or data sets. The best way to learn Statistics is to apply it. One problem, though, is that knowing only a little Statistics might be worse than knowing nothing.
  - skorgu 17y ago
    Considering the article is a concrete introduction to statistics with applications and is passionate about your last point you seem to agree with Zed.

tobtoh 17y ago

I agree. The last time I dabbled with statistics was at university and whilst I could see it was useful, it was boring as anything. I couldn't see any really application in my day to day job - after all, besides understanding the difference between mean and medium, what else would I need? But Zed's article, juvenile as it was in tone, had undeniable passion about statistics. And it was enough to keep me reading through the whole article and pay attention to the examples. As it is, I will be doing further reading on statistics and so Zed's article has been incredibly useful to me. "Maybe it's just me, but Statistics is a beautiful field, and such intellectual beauty should be all the "psyching up" one needed." It's just you. Nine out of ten people think statistics are nothing more than boring numbers made up on the spot.

AlphaMonkey 17y ago
Nine out of ten people learned Statistics from teachers who knew jack of Statistics. The difference between Statistics and Math is that Statistics is data-oriented and somewhat "experimental". Yeah, I hated Statistics in high-school, but when I learned Information Theory and Statistical Signal Processing, then I understood what one could do with knowledge of Statistics, and what the field is all about. If you can't see the beauty in it, you've probably been taught pseudo-Statistics. Don't feel bad. All the Math that engineering students learn is kind of pseudo-Math. All one learns in high-school is BS. If you want to learn something, here's my advice: i) Don't use modern, over-designed textbooks.. you know... the thick expensive ones with many colors and boxes highlighting the formulas one must memorize. ii) Instead read the classic books from the 1960s, many of which are published by Dover. They look boring at 1st sight, but their content is rich. Another option is to get the old Soviet books from the 1960s, which tend to be forgotten gems. The Russians are the best at marrying theory with application.