3 ms·

it seems like if he did that, he'd be biting off WAY more than he can chew at the present time. If you want to learn statistics, it's probably better to start

it seems like if he did that, he'd be biting off WAY more than he can chew at the present time. If you want to learn statistics, it's probably better to start at the beginning (_Cartoon Guide to Statistics_, O'Reilly's new _Head First Statistics_, or Huff's _How to Lie With Statistics_) than to leap headlong into a huge, mostly intractable problem and pagefault in knowledge at each point you come across something you don't know how to do.

physcab 17y ago
I agree, but at the same time, you only learn by doing. In my experience, even when you dive in way over your head, you tend to pick up the information rather quickly. I took a machine learning class with no statistics background and after a few weeks of floundering and learning terminology I was fine. The benefit of forming a problem first gives you an ultimate goal of which to work towards. Don't tell Google that it's slogan ("Organize the world's information") is biting off more than it could chew.
- timwiseman 17y ago
  I agree with you, starting with a problem can help provide motivation, structure, and focus and all of those can help keep you learning quickly. Still, there is a place for an introductory book if you are truly coming from minimal knowledge of the subject.
- discojesus 17y ago
  I agree, but at the same time, you only learn by doing. This is true, but I think in the original poster's case it could be much more easily and reliably be accomplished by continually giving him problems that are within (or more ideally, just outside) his circle of competence, rather than a problem like "predict stock prices" which isn't in any human being's circle of competence. Moreover, with the latter problem, he'll get virtually no feedback as to whether his answer was correct, because a correct answer for "use statistics to predict stock prices" doesn't exist. Odds are that if he follows that path he'll quit before making any progress, or at the least he won't be able to close the feedback loop that is so vital to gaining expertise. I think that if he's starting from ground zero and wanting to learn statistics, he'd be much better served by sitting down with The Cartoon Guide to Statistics and a deck of cards and set of dice first. He can work his way up to conquering the stock market :) Don't tell Google that it's slogan ("Organize the world's information") is biting off more than it could chew. I think that's apples and oranges - he's trying to learn statistics, not trying to convince potential clients or investors that he's already an expert. I don't think it would be harmful at all for him to have a lofty, far-out goal like "predict stock prices" to aim toward, but I do think that if he starts out trying to learn statistics by typing "statistical stock prediction methods" into Google, he will burn out rather quickly. Pagefaulting in knowledge when you need it is probably optimal for something where you just want to make sure your knowledge is passable, but if he wants to truly know his domain, he's gotta get out the marbles and urns. :)
- nostrademons 17y ago
  "Don't tell Google that it's slogan ("Organize the world's information") is biting off more than it could chew." They came up with that slogan well after they were already experts in search, and probably after Google had been written and they'd formed a company. To hear Larry tell it, Google started with the question of "What if we could download all of the web and just keep all the links?" And then Terry Winograd encouraged them, and they realized that the link structure of the web was a lot like the citation graph of academic publications. And then they realized they could build a kick-ass search engine by using that to rank page relevance. And then when nobody would license it, they formed a company. The way to build massive world-changing systems isn't to start with massive world-changing ideas. It's to start with interesting, challenging, but tractable problems, and then see where they lead you.

physcab 17y ago

I agree, but at the same time, you only learn by doing. In my experience, even when you dive in way over your head, you tend to pick up the information rather quickly. I took a machine learning class with no statistics background and after a few weeks of floundering and learning terminology I was fine. The benefit of forming a problem first gives you an ultimate goal of which to work towards. Don't tell Google that it's slogan ("Organize the world's information") is biting off more than it could chew.

timwiseman 17y ago
I agree with you, starting with a problem can help provide motivation, structure, and focus and all of those can help keep you learning quickly. Still, there is a place for an introductory book if you are truly coming from minimal knowledge of the subject.
discojesus 17y ago
I agree, but at the same time, you only learn by doing. This is true, but I think in the original poster's case it could be much more easily and reliably be accomplished by continually giving him problems that are within (or more ideally, just outside) his circle of competence, rather than a problem like "predict stock prices" which isn't in any human being's circle of competence. Moreover, with the latter problem, he'll get virtually no feedback as to whether his answer was correct, because a correct answer for "use statistics to predict stock prices" doesn't exist. Odds are that if he follows that path he'll quit before making any progress, or at the least he won't be able to close the feedback loop that is so vital to gaining expertise. I think that if he's starting from ground zero and wanting to learn statistics, he'd be much better served by sitting down with The Cartoon Guide to Statistics and a deck of cards and set of dice first. He can work his way up to conquering the stock market :) Don't tell Google that it's slogan ("Organize the world's information") is biting off more than it could chew. I think that's apples and oranges - he's trying to learn statistics, not trying to convince potential clients or investors that he's already an expert. I don't think it would be harmful at all for him to have a lofty, far-out goal like "predict stock prices" to aim toward, but I do think that if he starts out trying to learn statistics by typing "statistical stock prediction methods" into Google, he will burn out rather quickly. Pagefaulting in knowledge when you need it is probably optimal for something where you just want to make sure your knowledge is passable, but if he wants to truly know his domain, he's gotta get out the marbles and urns. :)
nostrademons 17y ago
"Don't tell Google that it's slogan ("Organize the world's information") is biting off more than it could chew." They came up with that slogan well after they were already experts in search, and probably after Google had been written and they'd formed a company. To hear Larry tell it, Google started with the question of "What if we could download all of the web and just keep all the links?" And then Terry Winograd encouraged them, and they realized that the link structure of the web was a lot like the citation graph of academic publications. And then they realized they could build a kick-ass search engine by using that to rank page relevance. And then when nobody would license it, they formed a company. The way to build massive world-changing systems isn't to start with massive world-changing ideas. It's to start with interesting, challenging, but tractable problems, and then see where they lead you.