Innumeracy

What Hacker News says

1. diogenes_atxSep 2026
   There are a number of good books to explain the main concepts of statistics without getting bogged down in the technical details. As a grad student at a public university in the USA, I worked as a teaching assistant for the undergraduate course Introduction to Statistics. The course used SPSS software to enable the students to perform statistical analysis on data sets. Although we offered a good textbook (listed below), many of the students struggled with the main concepts, so my colleagues and I added a optional supplemental reading list to the syllabus. The following books are the ones we recommended to the students. I have read all these books, and they are pretty good at explaining statistics to anyone interested in learning the material at a conceptual level; anyone can read and understand these books, regardless of their educational background.

   Ian Ayres (2007) Super Crunchers: Why Thinking by Numbers is the New Way to Be Smart.

   Joseph Healey (2020) Statistics: A Tool for Social Research [This is the textbook used in the class, which I highly recommend].

   John Allen Paulos (1988) Innumeracy: Mathematical Illiteracy and Its Consequences.

   Nate Silver (2012) The Signal and the Noise: Why So Many Predictions Fail, but Some Don't.

   Nassim Nicholas Taleb (2005) Fooled by Randomness, second edition.

   Nassim Nicholas Taleb (2010) The Black Swan: The Impact of the Highly Improbable, second edition.

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2. diogenes_atxAug 2026
   As a grad student at a public university in the USA, I worked as a teaching assistant for the sociology class "Introduction to Statistics." The course used SPSS software to enable the students to perform statistical analysis on data sets. Although we offered an excellent textbook (listed below), most of the undergraduate students struggled with the material, so my colleagues and I added a supplemental reading list to the syllabus for those students interested in studying the main concepts. The following books are the ones we recommended to the students. I have read all these texts, and they are pretty good at explaining statistics to anyone interested in learning the material at a conceptual level; anyone can read and understand these books, regardless of their educational background.

   Ian Ayres (2007) Super Crunchers: Why Thinking by Numbers is the New Way to Be Smart

   Joseph Healey (2020) Statistics: A Tool for Social Research [This is the textbook used in the class, which I highly recommend]

   Catherine Marsh and Jane Elliott (2008) Exploring Data: An Introduction to Data Analysis for Social Scientists, second edition

   John Allen Paulos (1988) Innumeracy: Mathematical Illiteracy and Its Consequences

   Nate Silver (2012) The Signal and the Noise: Why So Many Predictions Fail, but Some Don't

   Nassim Nicholas Taleb (2005) Fooled by Randomness, second edition;

   _______ (2010) The Black Swan: The Impact of the Highly Improbable, second edition

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3. andsoitisJul 2022
   John Allen Paulos describes this in his book, Innumeracy.

   (Excellent book, by the way)

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4. luminadiffusionMar 2022
   Physics & Mathematics - Anyone who seriously pursues these fields learns to embrace the challenges as beautiful and the struggle to unravel their nature as fulfilling. To do this, we embrace the beauty in nature and see the connection with everything around us. Four books come to mind.

   Physics:

   1. Surely You're Joking, Mr. Feynman! (Adventures of a Curious Character) by Richard P. Feynman

   2. The Universe in a Nutshell by Steven Hawking

   Mathematics:

   1. Innumeracy: Mathematical Illiteracy and Its Consequences by J.A. Paulos

   2. Gödel, Escher, Bach: An Eternal Golden Braid by D. Hofstadter

   These books brilliantly illuminate the beauty in these fields. They show you that underneath all of that complex notation and "math speak" are beautiful ideas about life, the universe, and the nature of reality. These fueled me, even in to my PhD research. I still love them today.

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5. mitchelldeacon9Dec 2021
   When I studied economics in college, statistics was taught as a math course with virtually no straightforward explanation of the main concepts. Later as a graduate student in sociology, I helped teach statistics to undergraduates using an introductory textbook that featured an intuitive and conceptual presentation of statistics, and for the first time I really grasped the main ideas. By then it was no longer necessary to manually perform the advanced mathematical operations for statistical analysis, because the students were encouraged to use SPSS and other software tools. If you are looking for an outstanding introduction to statistics, I highly recommend the following textbook:

   Healey, Joseph (2014) Statistics: A Tool for Social Research, 10th Edition

   For those seeking a good conceptual knowledge of statistics based on real-world examples, including criticism of the limitations of statistical analysis, I would suggest these excellent studies:

   Lewis, Michael (2010) The Big Short: Inside the Doomsday Machine

   Paulos, John Allen (1988) Innumeracy: Mathematical Illiteracy and Its Consequences

   Silver, Nate (2012) The Signal and the Noise: Why So Many Predictions Fail, but Some Don't

   Taleb, Nassim Nicholas (2005/10) Fooled by Randomness, 2E; Black Swan: Impact of the Highly Improbable, 2E

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6. techbioDec 2020
   Might look to "Innumeracy" by John Allen Paulos.

   Though written a fairly long time ago, the subject fares better over time than many more qualitative ones.

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