What is the purpose of books on statistics written for non-statisticians? If one read many introductory statistics books, one might assume that the answer is “to raise the reader to a level of expertise sufficiently high that they are able to apply and understand a range of statistical techniques”—in other words, to do without a statistician (at least some of the time). However, to quote Will Rogers: “It isn’t what we don’t know that gives us trouble, it’s what we know that ain’t so”.

This book does (and claims to …