01559nam a22001937a 4500 250922b |||||||| |||| 00| 0 eng d 9780715655238 tbs eng QA279 .S638 2025 Smith, Gary 1945- 25944 author Standard deviations : the truth about flawed statistics, AI and big data / Gary Smith. Revised edition. London : Duckworth, 2025. 388 pages : illistrations, tables, graphs ; 20 cm. Did you know that chicken eggs can influence how computers generate random events? Or that humans can postpone death until after important ceremonial occasions? Or live three to five years longer if they have positive initials, like ACE? All these 'facts' have been presented with a straight face by researchers and backed up with convincing statistics. In Standard Deviations, economics professor Gary Smith walks us through the various tricks and traps we so often fall into. Today, data is so plentiful and our reliance on computer analysis and AI so entrenched that researchers spend precious little time distinguishing between good, meaningful deductions and rubbish. Not only do others use data to fool us, we fool ourselves. Drawing on breakthrough research in behavioural economics by luminaries like Daniel Kahneman and Dan Ariely, and taking to task some of the conclusions of Freakonomics, Standard Deviations demystifies the science behind the statistics. Standard deviations 25945 lcc 0 0 lcc 0 0 TBS TBS 2025-09-22 0 QA279 SMI B05795 2025-09-22 1 2025-09-22 1 4974 4974