Downey does a solid job of explaining why statistical analysis can fail, but overall, the book is a mixed bag.
A data scientist explains the common pitfalls of statistical analysis.
Sometimes we seem to be drowning in data and statistics that are complex, contradictory, and opaque. Downey, a professor emeritus of computer science at Olin College and author of several books on computer programming, sets out to make understanding it easier. In this book, the author works his way through a number of problems. He sees statistical analysis as an important and useful tool for decision-making, but he admits that things can go terribly wrong, regarding issues ranging from health diagnoses to chess rankings to earthquake predictions. He examines common errors like the base rate fallacy, selection bias, and length-biased sampling, using visualizations rather than equations wherever possible. The chapter on how flawed analysis affected the early attempts to track the spread of the Covid-19 pandemic is particularly illustrative—and worrying. Modeling can generate counterintuitive outcomes, such as Simpson’s paradox, in which aggregates do not (apparently) match the components. A key issue in statistical analysis is finding the right place in a dataset to start, and Downey does not provide much guidance on this element. He assumes that publicly available data is reliable, but this is not always the case, and politicians and advocates from across the spectrum are usually experts at manipulating numbers to support their own conclusions. Guidance from Downey on how to separate valid source data from misleading material, perhaps in a concluding summary chapter, would have been useful. Broadly, we might have expected more practical advice from an author who clearly knows his subject. This is an interesting book, but many sections require a close reading and a basic familiarity with the math, so it is not for everyone.
Downey does a solid job of explaining why statistical analysis can fail, but overall, the book is a mixed bag.Pub Date: Dec. 6, 2023
ISBN: 9780226822587
Page Count: 256
Publisher: Univ. of Chicago
Review Posted Online: Sept. 5, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 1, 2023
A pleasure for fans of old-school historical narratives.
Avuncular observations on matters historical from the late popularizer of the past.
McCullough made a fine career of storytelling his way through past events and the great men (and occasional woman) of long-ago American history. In that regard, to say nothing of his eschewing modern technology in favor of the typewriter (“I love the way the bell rings every time I swing the carriage lever”), he might be thought of as belonging to a past age himself. In this set of occasional pieces, including various speeches and genial essays on what to read and how to write, he strikes a strong tone as an old-fashioned moralist: “Indifference to history isn’t just ignorant, it’s rude,” he thunders. “It’s a form of ingratitude.” There are some charming reminiscences in here. One concerns cajoling his way into a meeting with Arthur Schlesinger in order to pitch a speech to presidential candidate John F. Kennedy: Where Richard Nixon “has no character and no convictions,” he opined, Kennedy “is appealing to our best instincts.” McCullough allows that it wasn’t the strongest of ideas, but Schlesinger told him to write up a speech anyway, and when it got to Kennedy, “he gave a speech in which there was one paragraph that had once sentence written by me.” Some of McCullough’s appreciations here are of writers who are not much read these days, such as Herman Wouk and Paul Horgan; a long piece concerns a president who’s been largely lost in the shuffle too, Harry Truman, whose decision to drop the atomic bomb on Japan McCullough defends. At his best here, McCullough uses history as a way to orient thinking about the present, and with luck to good ends: “I am a short-range pessimist and a long-range optimist. I sincerely believe that we may be on the way to a very different and far better time.”
A pleasure for fans of old-school historical narratives.Pub Date: Sept. 16, 2025
ISBN: 9781668098998
Page Count: 208
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: June 26, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2025
SEEN & HEARD
A virtuoso performance and an ode to an undervalued medium created by two talented artists.
The veteran actor, comedian, and banjo player teams up with the acclaimed illustrator to create a unique book of cartoons that communicates their personalities.
Martin, also a prolific author, has always been intrigued by the cartoons strewn throughout the pages of the New Yorker. So when he was presented with the opportunity to work with Bliss, who has been a staff cartoonist at the magazine since 1997, he seized the moment. “The idea of a one-panel image with or without a caption mystified me,” he writes. “I felt like, yeah, sometimes I’m funny, but there are these other weird freaks who are actually funny.” Once the duo agreed to work together, they established their creative process, which consisted of working forward and backward: “Forwards was me conceiving of several cartoon images and captions, and Harry would select his favorites; backwards was Harry sending me sketched or fully drawn cartoons for dialogue or banners.” Sometimes, he writes, “the perfect joke occurs two seconds before deadline.” There are several cartoons depicting this method, including a humorous multipanel piece highlighting their first meeting called “They Meet,” in which Martin thinks to himself, “He’ll never be able to translate my delicate and finely honed droll notions.” In the next panel, Bliss thinks, “I’m sure he won’t understand that the comic art form is way more subtle than his blunt-force humor.” The team collaborated for a year and created 150 cartoons featuring an array of topics, “from dogs and cats to outer space and art museums.” A witty creation of a bovine family sitting down to a gourmet meal and one of Dumbo getting his comeuppance highlight the duo’s comedic talent. What also makes this project successful is the team’s keen understanding of human behavior as viewed through their unconventional comedic minds.
A virtuoso performance and an ode to an undervalued medium created by two talented artists.Pub Date: Nov. 17, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-250-26289-9
Page Count: 272
Publisher: Celadon Books
Review Posted Online: Aug. 30, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2020
PERSPECTIVES
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