Book Series on "Statistical Reasoning in Science & Society"

Back in early 2016, the American Statistical Association (ASA) made an announcement in its newsletter, Amstat News, about the introduction of an important new series of books. In part, that announcement said:

"The American Statistical Association recently partnered with Chapman & Hall/CRC Press to launch a book series called the ASA-CRC Series on Statistical Reasoning in Science and Society. 

'The ASA is very enthusiastic about this new series,' said 2015 ASA President David Morganstein, under whose leadership the arrangement was made. 'Our strategic plan includes increasing the visibility of our profession. One way to do that is with books that are readable, exciting, and serve a broad audience having a minimal background in mathematics or statistics.' 

The Chapman & Hall/CRC press release states the book series will do the following:

• Highlight the important role of statistical and probabilistic reasoning in many areas

• Require minimal background in mathematics and statistics

• Serve a broad audience, including professionals across many fields, the general public, and students in high schools and colleges

• Cover statistics in wide-ranging aspects of professional and everyday life, including the media, science, health, society, politics, law, education, sports, finance, climate, and national security

• Feature short, inexpensive books of 100–150 pages that can be written and read in a reasonable amount of time."

Seven titles have now been published in this series -

Measuring Society, by Chaitra H. Nagaraja (2019)
Measuring Crime: Behind the Statistics, by Sharon L. Lohr (2019)
Statistics and Health Care Fraud: How to Save Billions, by Tahir Ekin (2019)
Improving Your NCAA® Bracket with Statistics, by Tom Adams (2018)
Data Visualization: Charts, Maps, and Interactive Graphics, by Robert Grant (2018)
Visualizing Baseball, by Jim Albert (2017)
Errors, Blunders, and Lies: How to Tell the Difference, by David S. Salsburg (2017)

Readers of this blog should be especially interested in Chaitra Nagaraja's recently published addition to this series. Chaitra devotes chapters in her book to the topics of  Jobs, Inequality, Housing, Prices, Poverty, and Deprivation. I particularly like the historical perspective that Chaitra provides in this very readable contribution, and I recommend her book to you (and your non-economist friends). 

© 2019, David E. Giles