Interesting book: Statistics as Principled Argument. Abelson, R. P. (1995) Hillsdale, New Jersey: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates. ISBN: 0805805281. [BookFinder4U link]. There is a wealth of wisdom in this book. The theme of this book is that Statistics provides basic principles to argue (debate might be a nicer word) about scientific claims. In the first chapter, Dr. Abelson argues that a persuasive argument has to have MAGIC--Magnitude, Articulation, Generality, Interestingness, and Credibility. Then he describes probability and randomness, illustrates common fallacies about probability, and shows how these principles can be applied to research findings. Chapter 5, On Suspecting Fishiness, describes some wonderful examples of strange numbers that might indicate fraud. This chapter is especially valuable because it is so rarely covered. The remaining chapters describe the MAGIC components of a persuasive argument with frequent citations of real research. This book is more conceptual than computational, which fits in with one of Abelson's Laws "Don't talk Greek if you don't know the English translation." The description of this article was written by Steve Simon on 2007-10-09, edited by Steve Simon, and was last modified on 2008-01-12. Send feedback to ssimon at cmh dot edu or click on the email link at the top of the page. Category: Critical appraisal