
Ask HN: How to Get into Statistics? - Eugeleo
My ultimate goal is to become proficient in statistical learning (you may know it as the boring part of ML). I’ve read a lot of good things about Introduction to statistical learning, but that book assumes a level of statistical knowledge that I do not possess - specifically, it throws around word like t-distribution, degree of freedom, p-value etc.<p>I’d like to understand those basics before I get deeper into the book. Is there some other preliminary textbook which would introduce me to those concepts?
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timwaagh
something called mathematical statistics and data analysis was my college
textbook. it covers those things but it's a tough read and i did not like it.
now actually, statistics is already quite advanced math. you might want to try
learning probability theory and measure theory first as they are considered
prerequisites.

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Eugeleo
Ok, thanks, I’ll be on the lookout for that one. I have some basic linear
algebra and analysis under my belt, not too much probability nor measure
theory, though. I hoped there might be some way to introduce the concepts in
an intuitive manner (and as much rigor and detail as possible on this level)
while maybe leaving some of the proofs or harder parts out.

Most of the books I’ve seen are either “monkey see, monkey do” or rigorous
mathematical gibberish, but nothing in between.

