Lord Krishna in Gita and German Philosopher Hegel said that small quantitative changes accumulate and bring in qualitative change. How do we apply it our lives? We should put in numbers (reading 10 pages a day, running 3 km every day) and it would qualitatively change us some day (making us wise, fit etc.). We should not worry about the qualitative change, because that is not in our hands. To become wise is not in our hands. To read those 10 pages a day is. And when we keep doing what’s in our hand, you witness the qualitative change one fine day.
That day is today for me with respect to my learning in Statistics.
I’ve been learning some basics of statistics this year. Like many things, I don’t know why. My friend Ranjan asked me why I was reading all these statistics books, and I had no answer. I’m not “upskilling” in the corporate sense of the word. As another friend Sanjay suggested, I should be learning AGI to fare better in the job market. But I know the instances that triggered me and made me curious
When people give anecdotal evidence to assert toxic ideas. That motivated me to re-open probability books to make a mathematical case for why anecdotal evidence is BS.
When people share stupid research articles in the name of evidence. That motivated me to learn Hypothesis Testing and understand how frauds do science.
I’m okay people having bad ideas to begin with. But when they don’t change their opinions in the light of new evidence, Err… That motivated me learn about Bayesian Statistics - Bayesian Feminist.
During the Lok Sabha elections, there was a lot of hungama around public opinion polls, exit polls etc. That motivated me to learn Statistical Inference
I am curious about how me form opinions and make decisions. I named my blog “Anviksiki - Science of thinking” for that reason. Stats helps in thinking better.
“Statistical thinking will one day be as necessary for efficient citizenship as the ability to read and write” - HG Wells
I’ve been reading Larry Wasserman’s All of Statistics, David Speiglater’s The Art of Statistics, Josh Starmer’s StatQuest, Venkat Raman’s LinkedIn posts and many other videos from Khan Academy, YouTube in general to aid my learning. All of these have been greatly helpful in teaching “how” to do statistics. But I needed a philosophical treatise. Something that helps me explore and articulate the “Why” of it. This week, I landed on it.
This book is a gold mine. Except for two chapters, it serves the general reader as well. If you’re remotely interested in data, statistics, science and public policy you must pick this book. This week is one of the best weeks this year because of this book :)
I wrote a couple of blogs taking notes from this:
Why Stats evolved late? Notes from “Statistics and Truth” by Dr CR Rao
Oh Delhi! (This is a technical blog)
I made few more HAM contacts. I met Shri. Sriramamurthy Suri, the doyen of HAM Radio in India. He told interesting stories about HAM Radio.
I’m eager to work on a few statistics case studies across disciplines. I’ve read about implementations in literature, law, factory, public policy etc. If you have any thoughts, I am happy to discuss. Also happy for an exploratory call :)
Bye bye