Listen free for 30 days
-
Standard Deviations
- Flawed Assumptions, Tortured Data, and Other Ways to Lie with Statistics
- Narrated by: Tim Andres Pabon
- Length: 9 hrs and 20 mins
- Categories: Health & Wellness, Psychology & Mental Health
People who bought this also bought...
-
Naked Statistics
- Stripping the Dread from the Data
- By: Charles Wheelan
- Narrated by: Jonathan Davis
- Length: 10 hrs and 48 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
From batting averages and political polls to game shows and medical research, the real-world application of statistics continues to grow by leaps and bounds. How can we catch schools that cheat on standardized tests? How does Netflix know which movies you'll like? What is causing the rising incidence of autism? As best-selling author Charles Wheelan shows us in Naked Statistics, the right data and a few well-chosen statistical tools can help us answer these questions and more.
-
-
Only for Americans
- By Amazon Customer on 16-07-19
-
A Field Guide to Lies and Statistics
- A Neuroscientist on How to Make Sense of a Complex World
- By: Daniel Levitin
- Narrated by: Dan Piraro
- Length: 7 hrs and 5 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
We live in a world of information overload. Facts and figures on absolutely everything are at our fingertips but are too often biased, distorted, or outright lies. From unemployment figures to voting polls, IQ tests to divorce rates, we're bombarded by seemingly plausible statistics on how people live and what they think. In a world where anyone can become an expert at the click of a button, being able to see through the tricks played with statistics is more necessary than ever before.
-
-
Ignore it at your own cost!
- By Georgi Vladkov Petkov on 06-03-17
-
The Signal and the Noise
- Why So Many Predictions Fail - but Some Don't
- By: Nate Silver
- Narrated by: Mike Chamberlain
- Length: 16 hrs and 21 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Nate Silver built an innovative system for predicting baseball performance, predicted the 2008 election within a hair’s breadth, and became a national sensation as a blogger - all by the time he was 30. He solidified his standing as the nation's foremost political forecaster with his near perfect prediction of the 2012 election. Silver is the founder and editor in chief of the website FiveThirtyEight. Drawing on his own groundbreaking work, Silver examines the world of prediction, investigating how we can distinguish a true signal from a universe of noisy data.
-
-
Great book well narrated
- By Megan on 05-09-20
-
How to Make the World Add Up
- Ten Rules for Thinking Differently About Numbers
- By: Tim Harford
- Narrated by: Tim Harford
- Length: 10 hrs and 20 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
When was the last time you read a grand statement, accompanied by a large number and wondered whether it could really be true? Statistics are vital in helping us tell stories - we see them in the papers, on social media and we hear them used in everyday conversation - and yet we doubt them more than ever. But numbers - in the right hands - have the power to change the world for the better. Contrary to popular belief, good statistics are not a trick, although they are a kind of magic.
-
-
Climate change
- By Hamster on 19-09-20
-
Fooled by Randomness
- The Hidden Role of Chance in Life and in the Markets
- By: Nassim Nicholas Taleb
- Narrated by: Sean Pratt
- Length: 10 hrs and 3 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
This audiobook is about luck, or more precisely, how we perceive and deal with luck in life and business. It is already a landmark work, and its title has entered our vocabulary. In its second edition, Fooled by Randomness is now a cornerstone for anyone interested in random outcomes.
-
-
Self righteous rambling
- By Ben Stubbens on 21-02-17
-
Damned Lies and Statistics
- Untangling Numbers from the Media, Politicians, and Activists
- By: Joel Best
- Narrated by: Patrick Lawlor
- Length: 5 hrs and 15 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Does the number of children gunned down double each year? Does anorexia kill 150,000 young women annually? Do white males account for only a sixth of new workers? Startling statistics shape our thinking about social issues. But all too often, these numbers are wrong. This book is a lively guide to spotting bad statistics and learning to think critically about these influential numbers. Damned Lies and Statistics is essential listening for everyone who reads or listens to the news....
-
-
Thought provoking
- By kirsty Thompson on 05-01-21
-
Naked Statistics
- Stripping the Dread from the Data
- By: Charles Wheelan
- Narrated by: Jonathan Davis
- Length: 10 hrs and 48 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
From batting averages and political polls to game shows and medical research, the real-world application of statistics continues to grow by leaps and bounds. How can we catch schools that cheat on standardized tests? How does Netflix know which movies you'll like? What is causing the rising incidence of autism? As best-selling author Charles Wheelan shows us in Naked Statistics, the right data and a few well-chosen statistical tools can help us answer these questions and more.
-
-
Only for Americans
- By Amazon Customer on 16-07-19
-
A Field Guide to Lies and Statistics
- A Neuroscientist on How to Make Sense of a Complex World
- By: Daniel Levitin
- Narrated by: Dan Piraro
- Length: 7 hrs and 5 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
We live in a world of information overload. Facts and figures on absolutely everything are at our fingertips but are too often biased, distorted, or outright lies. From unemployment figures to voting polls, IQ tests to divorce rates, we're bombarded by seemingly plausible statistics on how people live and what they think. In a world where anyone can become an expert at the click of a button, being able to see through the tricks played with statistics is more necessary than ever before.
-
-
Ignore it at your own cost!
- By Georgi Vladkov Petkov on 06-03-17
-
The Signal and the Noise
- Why So Many Predictions Fail - but Some Don't
- By: Nate Silver
- Narrated by: Mike Chamberlain
- Length: 16 hrs and 21 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Nate Silver built an innovative system for predicting baseball performance, predicted the 2008 election within a hair’s breadth, and became a national sensation as a blogger - all by the time he was 30. He solidified his standing as the nation's foremost political forecaster with his near perfect prediction of the 2012 election. Silver is the founder and editor in chief of the website FiveThirtyEight. Drawing on his own groundbreaking work, Silver examines the world of prediction, investigating how we can distinguish a true signal from a universe of noisy data.
-
-
Great book well narrated
- By Megan on 05-09-20
-
How to Make the World Add Up
- Ten Rules for Thinking Differently About Numbers
- By: Tim Harford
- Narrated by: Tim Harford
- Length: 10 hrs and 20 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
When was the last time you read a grand statement, accompanied by a large number and wondered whether it could really be true? Statistics are vital in helping us tell stories - we see them in the papers, on social media and we hear them used in everyday conversation - and yet we doubt them more than ever. But numbers - in the right hands - have the power to change the world for the better. Contrary to popular belief, good statistics are not a trick, although they are a kind of magic.
-
-
Climate change
- By Hamster on 19-09-20
-
Fooled by Randomness
- The Hidden Role of Chance in Life and in the Markets
- By: Nassim Nicholas Taleb
- Narrated by: Sean Pratt
- Length: 10 hrs and 3 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
This audiobook is about luck, or more precisely, how we perceive and deal with luck in life and business. It is already a landmark work, and its title has entered our vocabulary. In its second edition, Fooled by Randomness is now a cornerstone for anyone interested in random outcomes.
-
-
Self righteous rambling
- By Ben Stubbens on 21-02-17
-
Damned Lies and Statistics
- Untangling Numbers from the Media, Politicians, and Activists
- By: Joel Best
- Narrated by: Patrick Lawlor
- Length: 5 hrs and 15 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Does the number of children gunned down double each year? Does anorexia kill 150,000 young women annually? Do white males account for only a sixth of new workers? Startling statistics shape our thinking about social issues. But all too often, these numbers are wrong. This book is a lively guide to spotting bad statistics and learning to think critically about these influential numbers. Damned Lies and Statistics is essential listening for everyone who reads or listens to the news....
-
-
Thought provoking
- By kirsty Thompson on 05-01-21
-
Radical Uncertainty
- Decision-Making for an Unknowable Future
- By: Mervyn King, John Kay
- Narrated by: Roger Davis
- Length: 15 hrs and 50 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Uncertainty pervades the big decisions we all make in our lives. How much should we pay into our pensions each month? Should we take regular exercise? Expand the business? Change our strategy? Enter a trade agreement? Take an expensive holiday? We do not know what the future will hold. But we must make decisions anyway. So we crave certainties which cannot exist and invent knowledge we cannot have.
-
-
An important topic we’ll described but lacking advice
- By Philip Thorne on 04-05-20
-
The Book of Why
- The New Science of Cause and Effect
- By: Judea Pearl, Dana Mackenzie
- Narrated by: Mel Foster
- Length: 15 hrs and 14 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
"Correlation does not imply causation". This mantra has been invoked by scientists for decades and has led to a virtual prohibition on causal talk. But today, that taboo is dead. The causal revolution, sparked by Judea Pearl and his colleagues, has cut through a century of confusion and placed causality - the study of cause and effect - on a firm scientific basis.
-
-
Is the narrator a robot?
- By Kindle Customer on 06-09-19
-
The Black Swan, Second Edition: The Impact of the Highly Improbable: With a new section: "On Robustness and Fragility"
- Incerto, Book 2
- By: Nassim Nicholas Taleb
- Narrated by: Joe Ochman
- Length: 15 hrs and 48 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
A black swan is a highly improbable event with three principal characteristics: It is unpredictable; it carries a massive impact; and, after the fact, we concoct an explanation that makes it appear less random, and more predictable, than it was. The astonishing success of Google was a black swan; so was 9/11. For Nassim Nicholas Taleb, black swans underlie almost everything about our world, from the rise of religions to events in our own personal lives. Elegant, startling, and universal in its applications, The Black Swan will change the way you look at the world.
-
-
Excellent
- By Mr D Owers on 24-06-19
-
The Deficit Myth
- Modern Monetary Theory and How to Build a Better Economy
- By: Stephanie Kelton
- Narrated by: Stephanie Kelton
- Length: 10 hrs and 52 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Any ambitious proposal - ranging from fixing crumbling infrastructure to Medicare for all or preventing the coming climate apocalypse - inevitably sparks questions: how can we afford it? How can we pay for it? Stephanie Kelton points out how misguided those questions really are by using the bold ideas of modern monetary theory (MMT), a fundamentally different approach to using our resources to maximise our potential as a society.
-
-
A sophomoric fantasy.
- By SwissTony on 09-09-20
-
Superforecasting
- The Art and Science of Prediction
- By: Philip Tetlock, Dan Gardner
- Narrated by: Joel Richards
- Length: 9 hrs and 45 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Everyone would benefit from seeing further into the future, whether buying stocks, crafting policy, launching a new product, or simply planning the week's meals. Unfortunately, people tend to be terrible forecasters. As Wharton professor Philip Tetlock showed in a landmark 2005 study, even experts' predictions are only slightly better than chance. However, an important and underreported conclusion of that study was that some experts do have real foresight.
-
-
Not much substance.
- By Mr George Thompson on 09-05-16
-
The Rules of Contagion
- Why Things Spread - and Why They Stop
- By: Adam Kucharski
- Narrated by: Joe Jameson
- Length: 8 hrs and 47 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Why do some ideas take off - and others fail to spread? Why are some diseases predictable and others swamped in uncertainty? And what about the outbreaks that never happen at all? We live in a world that's more connected than ever before. But even as we see our lives being shaped by the spread of ideas, trends - and even diseases - we sometimes struggle to grasp how it actually works. Outbreaks seem to be driven by randomness and hidden laws, and in order to understand them, we need to start thinking like mathematicians.
-
-
ABSOLUTELY TIMELY AND WORTHY
- By Anonymous User on 01-03-20
-
The Growth Delusion
- Why Economists Are Getting It Wrong and What We Can Do About It
- By: David Pilling
- Narrated by: Elliot Hill
- Length: 8 hrs and 30 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
A revelatory and entertaining book about the pitfalls of how we measure our economy and how to correct them, by an award-winning editor of The Financial Times. According to GDP, the economy is in a golden era: economic growth has risen steadily over the past 70 years and shows no sign of stopping. But if this is the case, why are we living in such fractured times, with global populism on the rise and wealth inequality as stark as ever?
-
-
Great book made even better by great narration
- By KF on 08-08-18
-
Range
- How Generalists Triumph in a Specialized World
- By: David Epstein
- Narrated by: Will Damron
- Length: 10 hrs and 17 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In this landmark audiobook, David Epstein shows that the way to excel is by sampling widely, gaining a breadth of experiences, taking detours, experimenting relentlessly, juggling many interests - in other words, by developing range. Studying the world’s most successful athletes, artists, musicians, inventors and scientists, Epstein discovered that in most fields - especially those that are complex and unpredictable - generalists, not specialists, are primed to excel. They are also more creative, more agile and able to make connections their more specialized peers can’t see.
-
-
One of the best books I have listened to
- By HM on 30-06-19
-
More Damned Lies and Statistics
- How Numbers Confuse Public Issues
- By: Joel Best
- Narrated by: Kaleo Griffith
- Length: 6 hrs and 2 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
More Damned Lies and Statistics encourages all of us to think in a more sophisticated and skeptical manner about how statistics are used to promote causes, create fear, and advance particular points of view. Best identifies different sorts of numbers that shape how we think about public issues: missing numbers are relevant but overlooked; confusing numbers bewilder when they should inform; scary numbers play to our fears about the present and the future.
-
Rebel Ideas
- The Power of Diverse Thinking
- By: Matthew Syed
- Narrated by: Matthew Syed
- Length: 8 hrs and 15 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Rebel Ideas is a fascinating journey through the science of team performance. It draws on psychology, economics, anthropology and genetics, and takes lessons from a dazzling range of case-studies, including the catastrophic intelligence failings of the CIA before 9/11, a communication breakdown at the top of Mount Everest, and a moving tale of deradicalisation in America's deep South. Plus: insights from the studio of the most successful songwriter you've never heard of, the secrets of the most creative and progressive schools in the world....
-
-
Malcolm gladwell for the uk
- By Olly Buxton on 21-09-19
-
Data Science: The Ultimate Guide to Data Analytics, Data Mining, Data Warehousing, Data Visualization, Regression Analysis, Database Querying, Big Data for Business and Machine Learning for Beginners
- By: Herbert Jones
- Narrated by: Sam Slydell
- Length: 5 hrs and 18 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Expand your skills from being a basic data scientist to becoming an expert data scientist ready to solve real-world data-centric issues. Discover two comprehensive manuscripts in one audiobook.
-
-
muddled
- By Amazon Customer on 07-01-19
-
The New Silk Roads
- The Present and Future of the World
- By: Peter Frankopan
- Narrated by: Leighton Pugh
- Length: 6 hrs and 44 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
'All roads used to lead to Rome. Today, they lead to Beijing.' When The Silk Roads was published in 2015, it became an instant classic. A major reassessment of world history, it compelled us to look at the past from a different perspective. The New Silk Roads brings this story up to date, addressing the present and future of a world that is changing dramatically. Following the Silk Roads eastwards, from Europe through to China, by way of Russia and the Middle East, The New Silk Roads provides a timely reminder that we live in a world that is profoundly interconnected.
-
-
Fascinating. I learned something in every chapter
- By J.F.Penn on 19-01-19
Summary
Did you know that baseball players whose names begin with the letter "D" are more likely to die young? Or that Asian Americans are most susceptible to heart attacks on the fourth day of the month? Or that drinking a full pot of coffee every morning will add years to your life, but one cup a day increases the risk of pancreatic cancer? All of these "facts" have been argued with a straight face by credentialed researchers and backed up with reams of data and convincing statistics.
As Nobel Prize-winning economist Ronald Coase once cynically observed, "If you torture data long enough, it will confess." Lying with statistics is a time-honored con. In Standard Deviations, economics professor Gary Smith walks us through the various tricks and traps that people use to back up their own crackpot theories. Sometimes, the unscrupulous deliberately try to mislead us. Other times, the well-intentioned are blissfully unaware of the mischief they are committing. Today, data is so plentiful that researchers spend precious little time distinguishing between good, meaningful indicators and total rubbish. Not only do others use data to fool us, we fool ourselves.
With the breakout success of Nate Silver's The Signal and the Noise, the once humdrum subject of statistics has never been hotter. Drawing on breakthrough research in behavioral economics by luminaries like Daniel Kahneman and Dan Ariely and taking to task some of the conclusions of Freakonomics author Steven D. Levitt, Standard Deviations demystifies the science behind statistics and makes it easy to spot the fraud all around.
Critic reviews
More from the same
What listeners say about Standard Deviations
Reviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
-
Overall
-
Performance
- RR
- 27-05-20
Really interesting
A great listen if you're into statistics. If you're British, there are many facepalm pronunciations - Southwark (south-walk) and Chiswick (Chiz-wick) that just make it that little bit challenging not to want to scratch inside your brain, but thankfully they don't fill too many chapters.
1 person found this helpful
-
Overall

- Andreas Johansson
- 11-08-17
Good read for all empiricist
I have a MSc in statistics, and I have seen countless examples of miss-used statistics in medicine and economics. This book offers a great overview of the most common pitfalls, including several examples of each.
5 people found this helpful
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story

- Tom
- 08-03-17
Great examples of failing to understand methodology and lying with stats.
This book will help you become a skeptical consumer of stats and the conclusions drawn from them.
3 people found this helpful
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story

- Amazon Customer
- 27-09-18
Great and informational audio book
Great book about the assumptions that we make and ties together many differnet fields with statistics. Also great narrator!
1 person found this helpful
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story

- Tony Yunnie
- 09-10-20
Some great content, to many examples
I found this book very informative. It gave me a great insight into stats. The only problem was that it provided to many examples of the incorrect usage of stats. If it was halved one would still get the great content.
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story

- Dr. Yonathan Mizrachi
- 20-06-20
Great eye opening book! Made me think on my future
Great eye opening book! Made me think on my future research. Thank you for your insights.
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story

- A. Yoshida
- 10-02-20
Good Introduction on Misinterpretation of Data
The book provides an excellent introduction on the misinterpretation/misuse of data and statistics. For example, it is often cited that college graduates earn more money than high school graduates. But the fallacy of that thinking is that college graduates are self-selected; they choose to attend college and so the difference isn't just having a college degree (which result in a higher compensation). After all, billionaires like Bill Gates, Steve Jobs, and Mark Zuckerberg became rich despite not having a college degree (quite big exceptions to that statement). The book included some cautionary tales to illustrate a point but wasn't related to data. For example, the book described how Sir Arthur Conan Doyle (author of the Sherlock Holmes stories) believed in paranormal activity despite his friends' explanation on how the scams worked. Eventually, that transitioned to studies into paranormal activity and how researchers cherry picked the data that supported the theory and "explained away" the data that didn't support it.
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story

- Jan Madsen
- 25-02-18
Good but stumbles on macro economics
Very good read and certainly recommendable. Just ignore the "USA can print money to pay off its debt" nonsense in the Reinhart & Rogoff section.
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story

- CalebThomas
- 03-01-18
Not a beach read. But worth it
This book highlights all the ways people misuse statistics, and debunks a lot of common myths and pop medical reports. Definitely not for the faint of heart (or faint of mind). But if you can swim through the math it will change the way you read headlines
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story

- Chris P.
- 20-03-17
Authors personal Bias gets in the way
The author literally will explain how something is incorrect or should be doubted. Because it only had correlation and not causation. But he feels he can dispute it by claiming there are other correlations...
6 people found this helpful
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story

- Cliente Amazon
- 03-02-18
Payed twice
Would you try another book from Gary Smith and/or Tim Andres Pabon?
Interesting them and competent author.
Any additional comments?
The audio book has no companion. Amazon.com.br does not provide the kindle copy for Brazilian listeners, although its tax free benefits.
1 person found this helpful