There a bunch of really good popular science books around, that deal with real science, as well as the history and reasons behind current theories, while remaining extremely enjoyable to read. For example, "Chaos" by James Gleick (chaos, fractals, nonlinearity), "A brief history of time" by Stephen Hawking (physics, origin of the universe, time, black holes), or "The Selfish Gene" by Richard Dawkins (evolution and natural selection). Some of these books present arguments (Dawkins) and some don't (Gleick). But they all serve to make it easy for those of us without in-depth scientific education to understand otherwise difficult concepts.
Are there any such books that focus mainly on Statistics, or machine learning?
Please include a summary of what each book covers.
Best Answer
I suspect The Lady Tasting Tea, by David Salsberg is exactly what you want. It's very much written in a narrative style, almost like a novel, with essentially no math (as I recall), so it would be accessible to anyone. I read it long ago and really enjoyed it. It reads very fast, and could give people a sense of what statistical analysis is about and how it can help us understand the world and solve practical problems.