Statistical Methods for Machine Learning?

In this age of flourishing Deep Learning frameworks that allow you to train and run a model in a matter of minutes (or more) practitioners tend to underestimate why they need Statistical Methods in their tool box. It turns out Machine Learning and Deep Learning as a sub-field of it use Statistical Methods extensively throughout the training-inference pipeline. Starting from data preparation and ending on model performance validation. So, yes if you are not aware how those methods may be helpful, then it is time to have a look at a new Statistical Methods for Machine Learning book by Dr. Jason Brownlee from Machine Learning Mastery.  This book will explain in simple terms with practical examples what are Statistical Methods and how one can incorporate them in a day to day settings. 

What is there for me?

Have you ever studied at college or university or elsewhere about normal or Gaussian distribution, but never really understood how to apply it in a real situation? Have you ever wondered what is p-value and is there any better way such as Estimation Statistics that might include the quantifying the size of an effect or the amount of uncertainty for a specific outcome or result, and not only whether there was a difference between samples. In addition, the book clarifies the difference between Law of Large Numbers and Central Limit Theorem that are frequently confused with one another.

In addition, the book includes hands-on code examples that are tested and work correctly, and may be a good starting point in your own Machine Learning projects. 

Is it worth buying?

The book is worth buying if you intend to be a more productive Machine Learning practitioner that not only runs code from tutorials, but also understands how to prepare and analyse the data for an algorithm in an efficient way, one how strives to get better results from models by evaluating them using statistical methods, one that values code snippets that he or she may build upon in their own Machine Learning  projects.

Parting Words

All in all, Statistical Methods for Machine Learning has all the merits of books from Machine Learning Mastery that are easy to grasp and bring immediate practical value that is applicable from the start and they are joyful reading.