Bayesian Statistics the Fun Way: Learn statistics with examples you will never forget

An Introduction to Bayesian Statistics with awesome, fun, and crazy examples. Learn Bayesian Statistics the fun way!

The following is a review of the book Bayesian Statistics the Fun Way: Understanding Statistics and Probability with Star Wars, LEGO, and Rubber Ducks by Will Kurt.

Review

The book Bayesian Statistics the fun way offers a delightful and fun read for those looking to make better probabilistic decisions using unusual and highly illustrative examples. It will give you a complete understanding of Bayesian Statistics through simple explanations and amusing examples that go from calculating how likely Han Solo is to survive a flight through an asteroid field to calculating the probability of seeing an UFO.

Don’t think however, that this is the typical Bayesian Statistics for Dummies book. The topics covered are complex, however they are explained in a really straightforward and simple manner, stripping all complexity from them and making them approachable to everybody.

The problem with topics like statistics, algebra, maths, and probability is that almost always they are explained in a flat-tone, boring and un-practical manner. Bayesian Statistics the Fun way changes this. You will have fun while learning real skills, like how to:

– Measure your own level of uncertainty in a conclusion or belief
– Calculate Bayes theorem and understand what it’s useful for
– Find the posterior, likelihood, and prior to check the accuracy of your conclusions
– Calculate distributions to see the range of your data
– Compare hypotheses and draw reliable conclusions from them

With Bayesian Statistics the Fun Way you will learn to get the most value from your data, the difference between frequentist and Bayesian statistics and much more! Take a look at the contents to see.

If you’ve never head of Bayesian statistics or Bayes Theorem, you can learn about them in this awesome video by Veritasium.

Bayesian Statistics the fun way presents an amusing and easy to read introduction to bayesian statistics and it is probably the best bayesian statistics book to start with. After reading this book we will have a solid foundation of how they work, and will be prepared for more advanced readings like Statistical Rethinking.

The contents of the book are the following:

Part I: Introduction to Probability.

Chapter 1: Bayesian Thinking and everyday reasoning.
Chapter 2: Measuring Uncertainty.
Chapter 3: The Logic of Uncertainty
Chapter 4: Creating a Binomial Probability Distribution
Chapter 5: The Beta distribution

Part II: Bayesian Probability and Prior Probabilities.

Chapter 6: Conditional Probability
Chapter 7: Bayes’ Theorem with LEGO
Chapter 8: The Prior, Likelihood, and Posterior of Bayes’ theorem
Chapter 9: Bayesian Priors and Working with probability distributions

Part III: Parameter Estimation

Chapter 10: Introduction to Averaging and Parameter Estimation
Chapter 11: Measuring the spread of our data
Chapter 12: The normal distribution
Chapter 13: Tools of parameter estimation: The PDF, CDF, and Quantile Function
Chapter 14: Parameter estimation with Prior probabilities

Part IV: Hypothesis testing – The Heart of Statistics

Chapter 15: From Parameter Estimation to Hypothesis testing: Building a Bayesian A/B test
Chapter 16: Introduction to the Bayes Factor and the Posterior Odds: The competition of ideas
Chapter 17: Bayesian Reasoning in the Twilight Zone
Chapter 18: When Data doesn’t convince you
Chapter 19: From hypothesis testing to parameter estimation

As you can see, despite of the easy going tone of the book that we have remarked previously, the contents build up from easy to become quite advanced. Each chapter is short, and can be read in one sitting. Also, every chapter ends with a series of exercises. We recommend doing just this to make the most out of the reading: sparing 1 hour to read through a chapter in one sitting, and completing the associated exercises, which are solved in Appendix C of the book.

Appendix A includes a really cool introduction to statistics with the R programming language, and appendix B contains the basic math notions you need to understand the book; don’t worry they are easy and you most likely do not need to visit this appendix.

Summary

Bayesian Statistis the Fun way presents an easy to read, friendly introduction to Bayesian statistics, that will help you to build a flexible and robust framework for working through a wide range of statistical problems: calculating distributions, comparing hypothesis, understanding conditional probabilities, likelihood, and much more! A fantastic read for those that are looking to finally understand statistics!

Kudos to Will Kurt.

You can buy the book at the best price on Amazon here: