read for egg heads

Brutus · Posted: Sun Feb 22, 2009 2:51 pm Post subject: read for egg heads

I read "The Drunkard's Walk" this weekend.

It describes how much we all suck at probability and statistics and any decision-making based on it - and WHY. it also describes some history of math and the development of probability and statistics as well.

The best is some psychology experiments illustrating the human-heard mentality and our shitty assumptions, and how those things make our world SO much more random then you would imagine. From sports stats, to mutual fund managers, to hit songs, to blockbuster novels, this book provides some interesting insights on what really drives success and failure.

If you got the time pick it up and recognize your inner drunkard. Yarr!
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Wang Chung · Posted: Sun Feb 22, 2009 3:54 pm Post subject:

I'll put it on my never-ending list of books to read, but this one might get priority due to its relevance to my current probability/statistics learninations.

I really wonder how good descriptive statistics are. Right now in stat, we're going over Poisson Distribution which supposedly can give you the probability of something occurring some amount, given that on average, it occurs some other amount. An example I read was, "Given that the Coach knows that there are 3 injured players each game, what is the probability that there will be only one injury during the championship game?" Using the Poisson Distribution function we got like 10% or something stupid like that - I really have no idea how that works or how much bearing that has on the real world.
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is now -=|CT|=- Frothy Mixture

Nugget · Posted: Sun Feb 22, 2009 5:29 pm Post subject:

once my library gets it in ill take a look at it
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Nugget · Posted: Sun Mar 22, 2009 6:20 pm Post subject:

Picked it up on tuesday and finished it today...pretty awesome book Very Happy

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Messy Recipe · Posted: Sun Mar 22, 2009 7:12 pm Post subject:

Hm I must've missed this last month, but I'm sure I've heard the title before. I'll have to add it to my own list.
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