Customer Reviews

Primer of Biostatistics

5 star:		(5)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

I adopted this book last year for my first year grad level course in biostatistics (for MS Biology students) and my students and I were very unhappy with it. It presents ANOVA in a very unusual (and confusing) way, and it's not easy to find the needed formulas buried in the text. The authors present some tests well (ex. Tukey) and make a very good point about the misuse of the standard error of the mean. The examples and end of the chapter problems are very good for medical applications; however, several of the problems refer to non-existent tables or problems (or ones that are numbered differently) and several provide answers that are just plain wrong! We compiled a list of errors we found and emailed both the first author and the publisher and never received a reply. It was definitely not worth the aggravation! This year we are using Biostatistics: The Bare Essentials. It, too, is flawed, but the students report that finding the appropriate formulas and examples is relatively easy. It doesn't provide enough problems for each chapter to test you knowledge, and the humor is a bit bizarre, but it is a better teaching text.

I am a biochemist with a Ph.D. with a poor background in statistics. This is a very useful book that helped me learn to analyze basic biological data. It is easy to use, easy to read, and contains lots of clear examples. I use it every time I write a paper to make sure my statistical analyses are as thorough as possible. It contains lots of explanations of which test you should use and when to use them.

The concept of this book is good-cut to the chase and give lots of relevent examples. However, the book has innumerable typos which can make it very dificult to follow the text. Some sections are just incomprehensible such as the section on power calculations for the chi square test. Most of the exercises at the end of the chapter are heavy on arithmetic and light on conceptual issues. Often the answers to the exercises are wrong. All these typos are really unacceptable for a fifth edition. I am at Amazon looking for another text to keep as a reference. By way of disclaimer, I am taking the author's course on introductory biostatistics and am doing average.

It's a decent book overall. The material is not too hard to underestand, and there are a lot of medical examples. However, there's nearly a typo on every other page. I wouldn't mind if the mistakes were minor, but it's too much when a third of the solutions are wrong, and statistical tables are incorrect (e.g. 6-8 & 6-9).

I found the 3rd edition very useful for reviewing concepts and looking up what tests make sense for which situations. Well worth having around if you consume (or occasionally conduct) public health or medical statistical analyses.

The quickest, most accurate stats book out there. Warning: you must read it carefully, you can't really skim. That said, if you do read it carefully, even just the first few chapters, you will truly understand basic stats. Before reading this I didn't get significance or what a t-test really meant. Now I can speak the lingo and critically assess other authors work. Just a great book if you give it a few hours to sink in.
Get the 5th edition, not the 6th, for some reason the 6th is full of typos and errors in the examples.

This is not a treatise in mathematics. The author uses easy to understand examples to explain concepts. Other reviewers have noted typos that altered their learning experience; I have not. Other reviewers report that the presentation of ANOVA is not easily understood; I disagree. Statisticians that are used to the Fisher and Scheffé methods of explaining ANOVA will clearly find this different. I actually found it useful to present ANOVA before the T-test and to use the examples he did. Glantz's text on regression and ANOVA is also very good.

Its very disappointing because the CD doesn't work with Windows 7. Its incredible because every new computer has Windows 7.

Rodulfo

Truly one of the best bio-statistics books available. Should be required reading for all physicians!

After buying and reading a number of crummy statistics books I stumbled across this one which is a lifesaver I will keep FOREVER. Clearly written and very hands-on. THIS is the book if you need to DO statistical analysis RIGHT NOW - and know what it MEANS.

I should add that I'm an engineer, not a biologist or physician, but the techniques and information are suitably general for ANYONE who needs statistics to do their work.