MATH158: Statistics: Start

A Field Guide to Lies: Critical Thinking with Statistics and the Scientific Method by Daniel J. Levitin. It's raining bad data, half-truths, and even outright lies. New York Times bestselling author Daniel J. Levitin shows how to recognize misleading announcements, statistics, graphs, and written reports, revealing the ways lying weasels can use them. Levitin groups his field guide into two categories—statistical information and faulty arguments—ultimately showing how science is the bedrock of critical thinking.

The Joy of Statistics: A Treasury of Elementary Statistical Tools and Their Applications by Steve Selvin The Joy of Statistics consists of a series of 42 "short stories", each illustrating how statistical methods applied to data produce insight and solutions to the questions the data were collected to answer. In addition, the text contains brief histories of the evolution of statistical methods and a number of brief biographies of the most famous statisticians of the 20th century. The statistical descriptions of these topics are in many cases accompanied by easy to understand explanations labelled "How it Works."

Critical Data Literacies: Rethinking Data and Everyday Life by Luci Pangrazio and Neil Selwyn A guide to everything you need to understand to navigate a world increasingly governed by data. Bringing together cutting-edge thinking and discussion from across education, sociology, psychology, and media and communication studies, Critical Data Literacies develops a powerful argument for collectively rethinking the role that data plays in our everyday lives and re-establishing agency, free will, and the democratic public sphere.

Probably Overthinking It: How to Use Data to Answer Questions, Avoid Statistical Traps, and Make Better Decisions by Allen B. Downey An essential guide to the ways data can improve decision making. Probably Overthinking It uses real data to delve into real examples, drawing on cases from health campaigns, political movements, and more, shining a light on what we learn when we interpret data correctly, and what goes wrong when we don't.

More Damned Lies and Statistics by Joel Best Underlining the importance of critical thinking in all matters numerical, Best illustrates his points with examples of good and bad statistics about such contemporary concerns as school shootings, fatal hospital errors, bullying, teen suicides, deaths at the World Trade Center, college ratings, the risks of divorce, racial profiling, and fatalities caused by falling coconuts. More Damned Lies and Statistics encourages all of us to think in a more sophisticated and skeptical manner about how statistics are used to promote causes, create fear, and advance particular points of view.