Allen Lane Calling Bullshit: The Art of Scepticism in a Data-Driven World

In the first three chapters, the authors lay out their motivations for writing the book and set some foundations. Where does bullshit come from? Why is it so difficult to get rid of it? What's the role of internet and social media in the spread of misinformation? The proposed narrative is quite compelling. Even if you don't fully agree that social media had a negative impact on how we perceive the world, it is difficult not to see the need for education on how to process the sheer amount of information we are exposed to.The middle part explores the main fallacies that can arise when using data to support an argument. The difficult relationship between correlation and causation, selection bias, data visualisation and overfitting are the main themes explored here. As well as giving a great explanation of the basic ideas, the authors manage to explain quite technical concepts, such as Berkson's Paradox and the observation selection effect, in an easy and comprehensible way.Chapter 9 stands out as an outlier, exploring one of the authors academic interests, the "Science of science". How does science works, what are its problems? Why do scientists spend their time catfighting on Twitter and why, nevertheless, science works?The final part is a summary of the presented ideas, and proposes a strategy on how to spot and refute BS, without becoming a "well, actually" guy.While someone with training in quantitative research might not learn much from this book, it is a great resource for the rest to deal with a data-driven, information-flooded world. I always thought that studying statistics and probability would equip people with exceptional instruments to process information. It turns out that this book gets you a long way there (even if not completely there, obviously), without a single equation. Also, it's great fun.

Even when you are a researcher it is always helpful to cover these topics in order to tune your own critical thinking. I thoroughly enjoyed this book and finished it in a day! The chapter about publication bias is really quite worrying and is serious motivation for good evidence based practice and strong statistical knowledge. A must read for students as the topics are explained so well.

The book arrived on time and the inside of the book is in good condition but unfortunately the cover is covered in black marks. This is a gift and I would be embarrassed to give this as a gift.

Creases on pages and front cover and holes on the back cover

Pour avoir suivi leur cours, je souhaitais aveuglement me procurer l'ouvrage. Je le possede déjà en version dématérialisé, en epub. Je l'attendais avec impatience, sans grandes exigences, mais je fini quand même déçu.Si le contenu semble au RDV, la couverture elle est de très très très piètre qualité... Doublé d'un vendeur qui ne prends pas soin de l'ouvrage, on recoit ça dans un état lamentable ! Vraiment inadmissible quand on les voit vendre ça au delà de sa vrai valeur (cet ouvrage est à 20 livres à la base, c'est écrit dessus). Je ne suis pas très regardant sur les détails, mais là cette couverture est clairement abusive: on dirait une page blanche imprimée à la maison, qui n'est même pas adaptée aux dimensions du livre... Les pages sont elles aussi de mauvaise facture. Les figures de l'ouvrage sont en noir et blanc, on comprends mieux ce choix en voyant les pages. L'éditeur a clairement une intention d'économie, de même pour le vendeur. J'ai payé l'ouvrage 10 euros au dessus de sa vrai valeur, et je le regrette amèrement. Pourtant je ne demandais pas grand chose d'autre que la version papier d'un cours que j'ai suivit et d'un epub que je possede. J'attendais cet ouvrage avec impatience... Dommage pour les auteurs, ils n'ont pas su choisir l'éditeur et les revendeurs. Suivez leur cours, au pire lisez ça en format epub (même si, comme moi vous aimez le papier), ca donne plus envie que la forme sous laquelle ça semble avoir été publié !