Book Review of: Randomness

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Reviewer: Mark Lamendola, author of over 6,000 articles.

In all probability, you will like this book.

Professor Bennett took a subject that most people consider dry and made it interesting. Randomness, in case you don't know, is a concept fundamental to the application of statistical science. Along with other statistical concepts, it's commonly misunderstood. Professor Bennett made a solid contribution to the literature, by making an understanding of randomness accessible to the lay person.

It's a fairly short book, and didn't take me long to read it. No dense text, no complex math, no mind-numbing problems to work out. The book has a small form factor (8.5H x 6.5W) and runs only 188 pages. So if you've had a fear of statistics, don't worry. You can dive right into this book and gain an understanding of randomness without breaking a sweat.

Professor Bennett writes in a conversational style. I think that, with this particular topic, it's a struggle to write in a way that eliminates all possible "eyes glazed over" moments for every possible reader. But Professor Bennett seems to have met that challenge.

The real meat of this book doesn't take 188 pages. What I mean by that is most of the book doesn't directly explain randomness. Most of it provides an historical overview of how mathematicians and others contributed to, or sidetracked, our modern understanding of the subject. Personally, I find this interesting. The history does help show how you can arrive at wrong conclusions, and that additional depth in the book just reinforces the much smaller content that explains what randomness is.

So this book on randomness spends most of its time explaining what randomness is not. And that's probably just as important as understanding what it is, if you want a solid understanding rather than a superficial one. The bulk of this pertains to gaming (mostly games of dice).

I did say there's no complex math and there are no mind-numbing problems to work out. But there is math and there are problems. These are mostly to illustrate the points being made. I think a book on a statistical science topic would be confusing if it didn't use math to show you how the concepts actually work. So, fairly simply math plus some "Think about it" kinds of problems help make the concepts clear.

It's good that Professor Bennett explains related concepts, such as probability, the theory of errors, uncertainty, random numbers, and calculating odds. I would have liked to see more about Chaos Theory, as it's related to randomness. But she didn't go into it except for touching on its edges in Chapter 7 (Order in Apparent Chaos).

This book consists of 10 chapters. It has extensive notes and an extensive bibliography. It makes a good foundation stone for anyone considering a course of study that involves anything to do with statistical science.

I think it is also good for anyone who tries to draw conclusions from anything that presents any sort of data. The rampantly poor use and presentation of data is, to me appalling. People make non-existent associations, see random sequences as patterns, see patterns as random sequences, see correlations that do not exist, and see causal relationships where it's actually randomness they are looking at. As I neared completion of this book, it dawned on me that these problems exist because people don't understand what they are looking at because they don't have exposure to the concepts involved.

The kinds of errors I just described lead to bad decisions. They are, effectively, detuning a person's brainpower by a large number of IQ points. When you aren't misled by poor presentations of data, it's like having an IQ boost of a few dozen points. This book can help bring that kind of boost about, though I also recommend grabbing a few of the titles from the bibliography so you can get a primer on the related topics.

Add it to your collection. It's a tiny investment that will pay for itself many times over, plus you will just seem smarter to everyone around you when your interpretation of events or data or news or whatever is on a more solid foundation than theirs and you can explain "what is wrong with this picture."

Why I like stats:

When I was obtaining my MBA, one of the professors held a PhD in statistical analysis. He had honed his abilities in the Navy, where this kind of thing finds important uses in seemingly impossible situations. It's hard to wrap your head around some statistical concepts, while others are just obvious. And some things that seem obvious simply are not true. Of the professors I had, this professor was my favorite. We stayed in touch for several years after I graduated. His statistical background gave him a wonderful way of clearly viewing the world. A good understanding of statistical concepts, if not the math and its application, can help you avoid becoming a victim of obfuscation.