Everyone knows it is easy to lie with statistics. It is important then to be able to tell a statistical lie from a valid statistical inference. It is a relatively widely accepted commonplace that our scientific knowledge is not certain and incorrigible, but merely probable, subject to refinement, modifi cation, and even overthrow. The rankest beginner at a gambling table understands that his decisions must be based on mathematical ex pectations - that is, on utilities weighted by probabilities. It is widely held that the same principles apply almost all the time in the game of life. If we turn to philosophers, or to mathematical statisticians, or to probability theorists for criteria of validity in statistical inference, for the general principles that distinguish well grounded from ill grounded generalizations and laws, or for the interpretation of that probability we must, like the gambler, take as our guide in life, we find disagreement, confusion, and frustration. We might be prepared to find disagreements on a philosophical and theoretical level (although we do not find them in the case of deductive logic) but we do not expect, and we may be surprised to find, that these theoretical disagreements lead to differences in the conclusions that are regarded as 'acceptable' in the practice of science and public affairs, and in the conduct of business.

This volume is a collection of papers presented at a conference held in Shoresh Holiday Resort near Jerusalem, Israel, in December 2000 organized by the Israeli Ministry of Science, Culture and Sport. The theme of the conference was "Foundation of Statistical Inference: Applications in the Medical and Social Sciences and in Industry and the Interface of Computer Sciences". The following is a quotation from the Program and Abstract booklet of the conference. "Over the past several decades, the field of statistics has seen tremendous growth and development in theory and methodology. At the same time, the advent of computers has facilitated the use of modern statistics in all branches of science, making statistics even more interdisciplinary than in the past; statistics, thus, has become strongly rooted in all empirical research in the medical, social, and engineering sciences. The abundance of computer programs and the variety of methods available to users brought to light the critical issues of choosing models and, given a data set, the methods most suitable for its analysis. Mathematical statisticians have devoted a great deal of effort to studying the appropriateness of models for various types of data, and defining the conditions under which a particular method work. " In 1985 an international conference with a similar title* was held in Is rael. It provided a platform for a formal debate between the two main schools of thought in Statistics, the Bayesian, and the Frequentists.

This textbook provides a comprehensive introduction to statistical principles, concepts and methods that are essential in modern statistics and data science. The topics covered include likelihood-based inference, Bayesian statistics, regression, statistical tests and the quantification of uncertainty. Moreover, the book addresses statistical ideas that are useful in modern data analytics, including bootstrapping, modeling of multivariate distributions, missing data analysis, causality as well as principles of experimental design. The textbook includes sufficient material for a two-semester course and is intended for master’s students in data science, statistics and computer science with a rudimentary grasp of probability theory. It will also be useful for data science practitioners who want to strengthen their statistics skills.

Mounting failures of replication in social and biological sciences give a new urgency to critically appraising proposed reforms. This book pulls back the cover on disagreements between experts charged with restoring integrity to science. It denies two pervasive views of the role of probability in inference: to assign degrees of belief, and to control error rates in a long run. If statistical consumers are unaware of assumptions behind rival evidence reforms, they can't scrutinize the consequences that affect them (in personalized medicine, psychology, etc.). The book sets sail with a simple tool: if little has been done to rule out flaws in inferring a claim, then it has not passed a severe test. Many methods advocated by data experts do not stand up to severe scrutiny and are in tension with successful strategies for blocking or accounting for cherry picking and selective reporting. Through a series of excursions and exhibits, the philosophy and history of inductive inference come alive. Philosophical tools are put to work to solve problems about science and pseudoscience, induction and falsification.

Proceedings of an International Research Colloquium held at the University of Western Ontario, 10-13 May 1973.

Now updated in a valuable new edition—this user-friendly book focuses on understanding the "why" of mathematical statistics Probability and Statistical Inference, Second Edition introduces key probability and statis-tical concepts through non-trivial, real-world examples and promotes the developmentof intuition rather than simple application. With its coverage of the recent advancements in computer-intensive methods, this update successfully provides the comp-rehensive tools needed to develop a broad understanding of the theory of statisticsand its probabilistic foundations. This outstanding new edition continues to encouragereaders to recognize and fully understand the why, not just the how, behind the concepts,theorems, and methods of statistics. Clear explanations are presented and appliedto various examples that help to impart a deeper understanding of theorems and methods—from fundamental statistical concepts to computational details. Additional features of this Second Edition include: A new chapter on random samples Coverage of computer-intensive techniques in statistical inference featuring Monte Carlo and resampling methods, such as bootstrap and permutation tests, bootstrap confidence intervals with supporting R codes, and additional examples available via the book's FTP site Treatment of survival and hazard function, methods of obtaining estimators, and Bayes estimating Real-world examples that illuminate presented concepts Exercises at the end of each section Providing a straightforward, contemporary approach to modern-day statistical applications, Probability and Statistical Inference, Second Edition is an ideal text for advanced undergraduate- and graduate-level courses in probability and statistical inference. It also serves as a valuable reference for practitioners in any discipline who wish to gain further insight into the latest statistical tools.

In this definitive book, D. R. Cox gives a comprehensive and balanced appraisal of statistical inference. He develops the key concepts, describing and comparing the main ideas and controversies over foundational issues that have been keenly argued for more than two-hundred years. Continuing a sixty-year career of major contributions to statistical thought, no one is better placed to give this much-needed account of the field. An appendix gives a more personal assessment of the merits of different ideas. The content ranges from the traditional to the contemporary. While specific applications are not treated, the book is strongly motivated by applications across the sciences and associated technologies. The mathematics is kept as elementary as feasible, though previous knowledge of statistics is assumed. The book will be valued by every user or student of statistics who is serious about understanding the uncertainty inherent in conclusions from statistical analyses.

Statistical Foundations of Data Science gives a thorough introduction to commonly used statistical models, contemporary statistical machine learning techniques and algorithms, along with their mathematical insights and statistical theories. It aims to serve as a graduate-level textbook and a research monograph on high-dimensional statistics, sparsity and covariance learning, machine learning, and statistical inference. It includes ample exercises that involve both theoretical studies as well as empirical applications. The book begins with an introduction to the stylized features of big data and their impacts on statistical analysis. It then introduces multiple linear regression and expands the techniques of model building via nonparametric regression and kernel tricks. It provides a comprehensive account on sparsity explorations and model selections for multiple regression, generalized linear models, quantile regression, robust regression, hazards regression, among others. High-dimensional inference is also thoroughly addressed and so is feature screening. The book also provides a comprehensive account on high-dimensional covariance estimation, learning latent factors and hidden structures, as well as their applications to statistical estimation, inference, prediction and machine learning problems. It also introduces thoroughly statistical machine learning theory and methods for classification, clustering, and prediction. These include CART, random forests, boosting, support vector machines, clustering algorithms, sparse PCA, and deep learning.

Statistical approaches to processing natural language text have become dominant in recent years. This foundational text is the first comprehensive introduction to statistical natural language processing (NLP) to appear. The book contains all the theory and algorithms needed for building NLP tools. It provides broad but rigorous coverage of mathematical and linguistic foundations, as well as detailed discussion of statistical methods, allowing students and researchers to construct their own implementations. The book covers collocation finding, word sense disambiguation, probabilistic parsing, information retrieval, and other applications.