You're Probably Overthinking It. Demystifying Data with Allen Downey
Description
In this episode, Allen Downey, PhD, experienced instructor, expert in Data Science and Bayesian Statistics, and author of the book “Probably Overthinking It,” will take you on an exploration of surprising statistical phenomena and how they're related to real-life common mistakes like the base rate fallacy, length-biased sampling, and Simpson’s paradox.
Sponsored by: https://odsc.com/
Find more ODSC lightning interviews, webinars, live trainings, certifications, bootcamps here – https://aiplus.training/
Topics:
- Can you tell us about yourself?
- You are the author of many books. Why another one and who is the audience?
- Tell us about the most common data (statistics) traps you see. There are many interesting ones mentioned in your book!
- In Chapter 1, you stated, “At least in a mathematical sense, no one is normal, everyone is weird, and everyone's the same amount of weird.” I love the play on words but what does it mean?
- Chapter 2 deals with the inspector paradox. Can you explain what that is?
- Tell us about length bias sampling
- In a past talk, you mentioned that the fastest runners are much faster and the best chess players are much better. But even among the best, there is always a GOAT. Where is the data/stats behind this snippet?
- I found your description of Berkson's paradox fascinating, aka when two independent variables appear to be negatively correlated when they are actually not. Can you talk more about that?
- Tell us about Causation, Collision, and Confusion.
- Your insights into The Distribution of Disaster and Black Swan events are fascinating. Can you explain and give us some examples?
- What is the base rate fallacy?
- Can you explain the counterintuitive phenomenon of Simpson’s paradox?
- What is your ODSC East talk about?
- Is your blog site the best place to follow you?
Some useful links:
You may find Allen's book "Probably Overthinking It" here - https://a.co/d/1yVeBhG
More information in Allen’s blog - https://www.allendowney.com/blog/
Learn more here - https://brilliant.org/lesson/the-overton-paradox/
All Allen's books you may find via https://greenteapress.com/wp/