I'll be going through this online introductory statistics book, several times, and blogging about it, probably in excrutiating detail, to increase my numeracy. My end goal is numeracy equivalent to someone with a masters in applied mathematics, but that may be as much as a decade away. For the most part, I expect to be doing it with free online texts like this one. I also plan to similarly increase my economic and social science literacy to the same extent. I may do a Ph.D. in the quantitative social sciences (given my desire to rationally maximize my wealth, the odds are that it may be in financial engineering). Although obsession probably enhances performance, so there's some possibility I might try to do a Ph.D. with someone like Prof. Hanson, where I'd be less likely to cover or compartmentalize my avocational interests from my formal learning environment.
http://davidmlane.com/hyperstat/
So far, I read through the first two screen pages of the introduction.
The concepts hit on were descriptive statistics (which prof. lane breaks down into numerical and graphical summarizations/presentations of data), and inferential statistics, which he describes as using samples to learn things about populations. He discusses two inferential statistics techniques: estimation and hypothesis testing. Hypothesis testing was discussed in a little more detail (used the term "null hypothesis"). The following weren't explained, although they had hyperlinks to explanations that I avoided, assuming they'll come up naturally in the text:
box plot, stem and leaf display, mean, standard deviation, parameter, confidence interval.
Good luck. I highlighted some online statistics books here:
http://entitledtoanopinion.wordpress.com/2009/02/25/online-stat-book/
I got up to sampling distributions at onlinestatbook.com before getting distracted months ago. I sometimes find it hard to read through texts on my computer (I've got a bunch of pdfs taking up space) because I can so easily read other stuff on the internet. I might make more progress if I had the physical books.
Posted by: TGGP | August 11, 2009 at 06:02 PM
TGGP, I think we learn similarly. A hardcopy might help, but debating your way through even introductory quant books is probably the best way to gain fluency in it -for you and for me.
As I blog my way through stat, applied math, and quant social science books, feel free to debate and comment just like you're doing now.
Posted by: Hopefully Anonymous | August 11, 2009 at 06:56 PM
I just checked out the hyperstat book, and it seemed very similar to onlinestatbook (for a second before I rechecked the latter I thought they might be identical), which shouldn't be surprising since David Lane was a major contributor to the latter as well. I prefer the onlinestatbook site.
If you wanted to have something like a book club, you could announce by what time you expect to finish what section so readers will be up to date. I just wish your blog had more readers to participate. I'm a bit surprised that you don't have more, since I consider you more worth reading than even most of the bloggers I like. Another blog that seems to have an oddly low number of readers is Modeled Behavior (which also recently returned from a long lull), which isn't as unique but is still consistently of high quality. One advantage it does have over your blog is that it uses wordpress rather than typepad :)
Completely off-topic, but I just had a post touching on some themes you discuss. Its about a Harvard law professor who just did a lousy job defending a client and reportedly is a poor teacher as well.
Posted by: TGGP | August 11, 2009 at 09:04 PM
TGGP,
I'd like to increase my readership, too, among people smart enough to improve the epistemology here. My main strategy is what I call the "Andrew Gelman Strategy" -mention their names in my blog and when they do the inevitable name search, they'll discover my thoughts related to their work.
Given the low internet penetration of even rather elite quantitative social scientists, I think I have a good shot at attracting their attention.
But in short, yes, this blog is succeeding more as a public dialogue between you and me than as an ideas community.
I have had some other same caliber posters (Douglas Knight, Mike Kenny) but when it comes to my blog, you're the grittiest.
Posted by: Hopefully Anonymous | August 11, 2009 at 09:28 PM