What are the odds? Mark Prell

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Prell, Mark, Author.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Probabilities.

Mathematical statistics.

Quantitative research.

Regression analysis.

Probability.

Regression Analysis.

probability.

Medical Subjects:

Probability.

Regression Analysis.

Physical Description:

1 online resource

Place of Publication:

Cambridge, Massachusetts London, England Harvard University Press 2026

Summary:

"Using real-world examples, from brewing beer to finding a lost submarine, What Are the Odds? illuminates the core concepts of statistical thinking, asking not just what the data say but whether they're any good. Mark Prell shows how to avoid spurious reasoning and how to identify data that have been cherry-picked, falsified, or are plain wrong"-- Provided by publisher

Contents:

How to weave the two strands of statistics : data quality and analysis

How to decide how fast to drive : measures of location and dispersion

How to measure the mortality of COVID‑19 : empirical probability and counterfactuals

How to convince the queen that British soldiers are dying needlessly : empirical distributions and data visualization

How not to be misled by medical studies or retirement planning : weighted means, Simpson’s paradox, and standardization

How to win a Nobel Prize by eating chocolate : correlation and regression

How to win dumb bar bets and make smart bets against nature : probability and its meaning

How to catch a killer and kill a theory : three rules of probability

How to elicit truth from people inclined to lie : conditional probability

How to find a lost nuclear submarine : Bayes’ theorem

How to achieve fairness in the US draft lottery : the uniform distribution

How to win free coffee in Canada : the binomial distribution

How to save Holland from the sea : the geometric and exponential distributions

How to tell if you might—or might not—need to start that diet : the normal distribution

How to brew better beer : the sampling distribution

How to measure the speed of light using a microwave oven : confidence intervals

How to grow Frankenstein barley : testing a difference of means

How to test whether Salk’s polio vaccine is effective : experimental design and testing a difference of two proportions

How to pick cherry blossom data and not cherry‑pick blossom data : forecasting and hypothesis testing using regression

Epilogue : how to build a community of truthfulness and respect

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references and index

Online resource; title from PDF title page (De Gruyter Brill, viewed February 24, 2026)

Other Format:

Print version Prell, Mark A. What are the odds?

ISBN:

9780674303904

9780674303911

0674303903

0674303911

OCLC:

1574478440

Access Restriction:

Restricted for use by site license