The Data Detective: Ten Easy Rules to Make Sense of Statistics

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The Data Detective: Ten Easy Rules to Make Sense of Statistics Audible Audiobook – Unabridged

Tim Harford (Author, Narrator), Penguin Audio (Publisher)

4.5 763 ratings

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From “one of the great (greatest?) contemporary popular writers on economics” (Tyler Cowen) comes a smart, lively, and encouraging rethinking of how to use statistics.

Today we think statistics are the enemy, numbers used to mislead and confuse us. That’s a mistake, Tim Harford says in The Data Detective. We shouldn’t be suspicious of statistics - we need to understand what they mean and how they can improve our lives: they are, at heart, human behavior seen through the prism of numbers and are often “the only way of grasping much of what is going on around us”. If we can toss aside our fears and learn to approach them clearly - understanding how our own preconceptions lead us astray - statistics can point to ways we can live better and work smarter.

As “perhaps the best popular economics writer in the world” (New Statesman), Tim Harford is an expert at taking complicated ideas and untangling them for millions of readers. In The Data Detective, he uses new research in science and psychology to set out ten strategies for using statistics to erase our biases and replace them with new ideas that use virtues like patience, curiosity, and good sense to better understand ourselves and the world. As a result, The Data Detective is a big-idea book about statistics and human behavior that is fresh, unexpected, and insightful.

Listening Length

10 hours and 24 minutes
Author

Tim Harford
Narrator

Tim Harford
Audible release date

February 2, 2021
Language

English
Publisher

Penguin Audio
ASIN

B089B5VXQ7
Version

Unabridged
Program Type

Audiobook
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Product details

Listening Length	10 hours and 24 minutes
Author	Tim Harford
Narrator	Tim Harford
Audible.com Release Date	February 02, 2021
Publisher	Penguin Audio
Program Type	Audiobook
Version	Unabridged
Language	English
ASIN	B089B5VXQ7
Best Sellers Rank	#12,169 in Audible Books & Originals (See Top 100 in Audible Books & Originals) #8 in Business Statistics #31 in Marketing & Consumer Behavior #57 in Social Psychology

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4.5 out of 5

763 global ratings

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James Muncy

A treasure for our time

Reviewed in the United States on March 9, 2024

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I read this book after the algorithm recommended it after reading a similar one. They complemented each other nicely and even told a similar story. This book is good reading for anyone, in fact society would be better if everyone read it. That’s the trick though, only if people read it out of curiosity and were not forced to. This book was so stimulating and enjoyable, I pushed through all the end pages to find the review prompt. If you are reading this review, read this book! You won’t regret it (statistically speaking).

2 people found this helpful

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Mike watkins Jr.

Practical principles presented through engaging story telling.

Reviewed in the United States on March 14, 2021

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An interesting book that presents 10 rules on how to make sense of statistics.

1. Should learn to stop and notice our emotional reaction to a claim, rather than accepting or rejecting it because of how it makes us feel.

2. We should look for ways to combine the "bird's eye" statistical perspective with the worm's eye view from personal experience.

3. We should look at the labels on the data we're being given, and ask if we understand what's really being described.

I can go on but you get the point. The book provides 10 simple yet helpful rules for better understanding statistics. I love how each chapter featured an example that at first glance appeared to be inapplicable, but Tim Harford would show you how said example demonstrates the particular statistical rule. Every kind of example you can think of, and every type of story you can think of, is featured in this book. Usually, that's a turn-off for me but Tim did a great job of somehow connecting that seemingly off-topic example to the specific rule/takeaway of the chapter. I was able to learn so much from this book through Tim's storytelling.

The only reason I didn't give this book 5 stars is that there were some chapters where the interesting story or interesting example wasn't there or like...where the author would just turn into your typical kinda boring statistics teacher. This is ironic because Tim emphasizes that the only way to change someone's mind is to get them curious, and the only way to get them curious is to make what you're presenting entertaining or attractive. Well, let's just say that in my opinion there were certain chapters where I felt like Tim kinda slacked on applying his own advice. Chapters where someone involved in statistics would love them, but an outsider like myself would find them dull and uninteresting. These portions of the book were few and far in between though so yeah this book was still a great book to read.

9 people found this helpful

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Andrea P.

Easy to read, informative and entertaining

Reviewed in the United States on February 16, 2021

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I enjoyed this book from beginning to end, and I learned so much. I'm neither a statistician nor an economist. I'm a policy person who's curious about how big ideas play out in the real world. This book seems to have been targeted right at me.

The Data Detective helps people think through the information they're attempting to process. The point is to get to the truth regardless of the information source. Chapter by chapter, Tim Harford explains the importance of things like recognizing that you bring your own emotions to data consumption, shifting your view of information, being curious about the backstory of data, demanding transparency even from big data sources and understanding what's missing from data. There are other "rules," too. They're all just as practical as the ones I listed, and they all require a certain amount of self-awareness if you want them to help you swim in the world's flood of information.

"Rule 3: Avoid Premature Enumeration" was the chapter that spoke to me the loudest. It describes how and why agreeing on definitions is important. I'll admit I cringed over and over again as I realized how many times I'd inadvertently repeated incorrect headlines. Throughout this chapter, my mind was boggled over what I thought I understood but what I clearly hadn't thought about properly. The Rule 3 examples, like all the others in the book, are offered in a succinct, engaging style. They focus on the differences between headlines and realities.

I learned in the Rule 3 chapter that I misunderstood:
- the point of that big 2014 Oxfam inequality study,
- how various definitions of an "infant" affect the infant mortality rates in the U.S. and elsewhere,
- how a study determined whether playing video games caused aggressive behavior, and
- all the ways a "gun death" might be defined.

It's that last one that really made me think about how much I was taking definitions for granted. It also made me think about how the race for a headline can obscure what's important in a study and can lead to the wrong actions. Taking Rule 3 to heart is about recognizing that words usually are what confuse things, not numbers. Definitions need to match.

Of course, that was just my favorite rule. There are nine others in The Data Detective. I read this book at about one rule / chapter a day to really absorb it, and I had to resist the urge to read more in a sitting. I freely admit I've been a Tim Harford fan ever since I read his first book The Undercover Economist. I've always been entertained by Harford's communication style, whether it's in his other books, in his Financial Times column, as the presenter for More or Less or in his new Cautionary Tales podcast. I feel like everything he's learned about communication in all those venues helps make The Data Detective so easy to read, informative and entertaining. It's a great guide to processing the information-rich world around us all.

34 people found this helpful

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Top reviews from other countries

Everybody

Tim Harford is excellent.

Reviewed in Canada on September 4, 2021

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Even though I have no background in Economics, Tim manages to engage and even make econ fun for everyone. Very helpful book when you want to determine the lies and truths in stats you see everyday.

AndersK

Warning!

Reviewed in Sweden on November 27, 2021

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It is a great book. But it is also sold as ”How to make the world add up”. I read two sentences before I realised that I already read the book…

Dragoeiro

Great approach to statistics and very entertaining

Reviewed in Germany on April 12, 2021

Verified Purchase

Lot's of data but very few insights? Great book to learn how to handle better

Jacqui

Excellent Book

Reviewed in Australia on January 6, 2023

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This is a great book for everyone living in this day of social media and the “everywhere A.I.” data sources.

Murray A. Sondergard

Good, but Lightweight

Reviewed in Canada on February 21, 2021

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I find it interesting that the last few pages of this book summarize the key challenges to presenting data and facts. To be successful, you must be interesting and inspire curiosity in the reader to learn more. An excellent point, but it seems to condemn books like these to being compendiums of interesting stories about the subject at hand (Malcom Gladwell is a master of the form, and it comes as no surprise to see Gladwell’s praise for Harford’s work) rather than a detailed analysis of the subject.

2 people found this helpful

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