Readings For the Layman

Paul Mason writes,

I have been trying to follow the Statistical Modeling, Causal Inference, and Social Science Blog. I have had a continuing interest in statistical testing as an ex-Economics major and follower of debates in the philosophy of science. But I am finding it heavy going. Could you point me to (or post) some material for the intelligent general reader.

I’d start with our own Teaching Statistics: A Bag of Tricks, which I think would be interesting to learners as well. And I have a soft spot for our new book on regression and multilevel modeling. But perhaps others have better suggestions?

4 thoughts on “Readings For the Layman

  1. Neal mentioned a paper recently, Jeff Gill's "The Insignificance of Null Hypothesis Significance Testing" (Political Research Quarterly, 1999) that I found very interesting and informative. Not too technical, but it does cover a lot of ground.

  2. Andrew, thanks for the book tip. I don't use regression very often in my own research, and it's been a while since I took two grad courses on regression. So when I started doing some freelance statistical work for economic firms, whose data call for some pretty tricky regression and modeling, I began looking for a good book to keep by my side in case I ran into something I wasn't sure how to handle. This looks right up my alley.

  3. When is your new book coming out by the way? I pre-ordered a copy on Amazon. Originally it was supposed to be out in October, now it says December.

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