Statistics is easy!

• Main Author: Shasha, Dennis Elliott.
• Other Authors: Wilson, Manda.
• Format: Electronic
• Language: English
• Published: San Rafael, Calif. (1537 Fourth Street, San Rafael, CA 94901 USA) : Morgan & Claypool Publishers, c2008.
• Series: Synthesis lectures on mathematics and statistics (Online) ; #1.
• Subjects: Nonparametric statistics.; Resampling (Statistics)
• Online Access: Abstract with links to full text
• Item Description: Part of: Synthesis digital library of engineering and computer science.; Title from PDF t.p. (viewed on October 15, 2008).; Series from website.
• Physical Description: 1 electronic text (vi, 70 p. : ill.) : digital file.; Also available in print.
• Format: Mode of access: World Wide Web.; System requirements: Adobe Acrobat Reader.
• Bibliography: Includes bibliographical references (p. 69-70).
• ISBN: 9781598297782 (electronic bk.); 9781598297775 (pbk.)
• Access: Abstract freely available; full-text restricted to subscribers or individual document purchasers.

Statistics is the activity of inferring results about a population given a sample. Historically, statistics books assume an underlying distribution to the data (typically, the normal distribution) and derive results under that assumption. Unfortunately, in real life, one cannot normally be sure of the underlying distribution. For that reason, this book presents a distribution-independent approach to statistics based on a simple computational counting idea called resampling. This book explains the basic concepts of resampling, then systematically presents the standard statistical measures along with programs (in the language Python) to calculate them using resampling, and finally illustrates the use of the measures and programs in a case study. The text uses junior high school algebra and many examples to explain the concepts. The ideal reader has mastered at least elementary mathematics, likes to think procedurally, and is comfortable with computers.