I’m helping to plan an Introduction to Statistics for incoming post-bachelors fellows in the next month, and because of the wide range of backgrounds these recent college graduates will be coming from, I’m approaching it as a short course on numeracy (we’ve got about 9 hours of lecture time scheduled for it), focused on statistics. This will be complemented with a very hands-on dose of STATA, but I’m going to try not to think about that.
My favorite numeracy-in-stats book is a dusty classic, and it would have survived on its name alone: How to Lie with Statistics. I wonder if that title is too cheeky for global health applications when the numbers really matter…
Do you know this book, and do you like it? Or is there a more modern book or article that I should think of instead? What would you pack into 9 hours of stats numeracy training. Tell me.
Healthy Algorithms 
You didn’t make a move from Stata to Python a prerequisite for taking the job?
I’ve found Statistics Without Tears to be a splendid primer that concentrates on the “whys” and “whats” and leaves the “hows” out.
@kjforeman: I wish… remember for future jobs “everything is negotiable”
@mattwartell: I like the title, I’ll look at it. The library says people who like this also like:
I like the comic book, but it’s not for everyone. I haven’t looked at any of the others.
I also like the “Cartoon Guide to Statistics” (Gonick) as a very first intro to stats. I’ve loaned it to a number of people, who really liked it. In fact, I keep having to buy new copies as the old ones disappear.
I have heard great reviews about
Senn, Stephen. Dicing With Death. Chance, risk and health. Cambridge University Press, 2003.
I have read only some chapters. It might also tie in with your health focus. David Aldous recommends the book: http://www.stat.berkeley.edu/~aldous/157/Books/popular.html
Good title, I’ll take a look. Punny chapter name: “the diceman cometh”
I think this is a pretty good presentation – on how to present statistics: http://www.williams.edu/Mathematics/rdeveaux/talks/music.pdf
Might be worth cribbing from. (via http://www.stat.columbia.edu/~cook/movabletype/archives/2010/08/teaching_yourse.html )