Nate Silver’s unprecedented accurate prediction of state-by-state election results in the most recent presidential race was a watershed moment for the public awareness of statistics. While data gathering and analysis has become a massive industry in the past decade, it hasn’t always been as well covered in the press or publicly accessible as it is now. With more and more of our daily interactions being mediated through computers and the internet, it is easier than ever to gather detailed quantitative data and do statistical analysis on that data derive valuable information and predictions from it.

Knowledge of statistics and quantitative analysis techniques is more valuable than ever. From biostatisticians to politicians and economists, people in every field are using statistics to further their careers and knowledge. These sites are some of the most useful, informative, and comprehensive on the web covering stats and quantitative analysis.

Comprehensive Statistics Sites

These sites give a good overview of how statistics can be useful and interesting in a range of different fields, from science to politics.

1. Five Thirty Eight

   Nate Silver rose to national fame after correctly predicting all 50 states in the 2012 presidential election, all through statistics. His blog Five Thirty Eight analyzes current data to make claims concerning contemporary politics.

   Astute Entry: Retirements Contributing to Largest Senate Turnover in Decades

2. Bayesianbiologist

   bayesianbiologist is run by Corey Chivers, a PhD candidate at McGill University in Montreal. He blogs on statistics, biology, and other areas of interest relevant to science.

   Astute Entry: The Gambling Machine Puzzle

3. Freakonometrics

   Freakonometrics deals with academic matters, as well as issues in concerning the economy and those relevant to mathematics.

   Astute Entry: Decision Theory

4. I’m a bandit

   Sebastien Bubeck is an Assistant Professor at Princeton University whose main interest is in sequential decision making. The name of the blog is derived from one of the largest problems in sequential decision making and the blog is centered around statistics and probability.

   Astute Entry: Oracle Complexity of Smooth Functions

5. Understanding Uncertainty

   Understand Uncertainty is part of a program run from the Statistical Laboratory at the University of Cambridge and its chief goal is to improve the way uncertainty and risk are discussed in society, as well as show how engaging and useful probability and statistics can prove to be.

   Astute Entry: Court of Appeals Bans Bayesian Probability (and Sherlock Holmes)

6. Hyndsight

   Written by an Australian professor of statistics, this site is an extensive and searchable resource of all things statistics. From the very basic to the very specific, this exhaustive and constantly updated material is ideal for graduate statistics students.

   Astute Entry: About Hyndsight

7. Access to Statistics

   Run from the Department of Computer and Systems Services at Stockholm University, Access to Statistics looks at how big data is attached to statistics and the implications of the association of the two.

   Astute Entry: Big Data and Official Statistics

8. Blog about Stats

   Blog about stats is comprised of a variety of statistical institutions and is a meeting point for members of these different organizations The focus is to convey and develop ideas relevant to statistics and the community associated with it.

   Astute Entry: Talking Pictures

9. Win-Vector Blog

   Win-Vector Blog looks at statistical data and combines it with tutorials and commentary on big data as well. They look at programming data, graphical perception, and visualization.

   Astute Entry: A Randomized Algorithm That Fails with Near Certainty

10. Three-Toed Sloth

    Three-Toed Sloth is run by a professor who frequently gives speeches and writes papers around the country. He maintains the blog to convey interesting posts on data analysis and statistics.

    Astute Entry: Relative Distributions and Smooth Tests

11. Lies, Damned Lies & Statistics

    This blog looks at social media statistics, data, and research. Included are site recommendations for other statistical blogs and interesting commentary on the state of social media

    Astute Entry: Unnoticed By the Media, Instagram is Overtaken By Berlin Based Rival Eyeem

12. Web Interface for Statistics Education

    WISE is short for Web Interface for Statistics Education and it aims at helping students with problems concerning statistics and encourage the flourishing of the field of statistics.

    Astute Entry: Tutorials

13. AnnMaria’s Blog

    AnnMaria is the President of The Julia Group, a company that specializes in online education concerning mathematics, statistics, and disability issues. The combination, while at first sounding uncanny, proves to give interesting insight into an area not frequently examined.

    Astute Entry: The Point of View of Truth

14. StatsBlogs

    StatsBlogs is a forum dedicated to statistics bloggers. It is one of the largest communities of statistics bloggers with over 10,000 visits daily.

    Astute Entry: About StatsBlogs

15. Jared Knowles

    This site includes the visual presentations, PhD summary, and current blog for Jared Knowles, a political scientist, researcher, and data visualizer. It also includes links to other relevant statistics sites.

    Astute Entry: Select Presentations

16. Statistical Modeling, Causal Inference, and Social Science by Andrew Gelman

    Several authors write together to discuss the wrote of statistics in social science. Their discussions cross over into categories like literature, sports, and teaching.

    Astute Entry: Authors

17. The Endeavor

    This blog combines a lifetime of experience in the areas of math, statistics, business, and software development. John D Cook discusses the crossover in all of these areas, as well as the importance of each of them in the current environment.

    Astute Entry: Most Popular Posts

18. Highland Statistics Ltd

    Highland Statistics gives statistics courses in a range of levels and they teach extensively throughout the world. In addition to teaching, they also publish books, do consultancy work, and provide the latest news in the statistics community.

    Astute Entry: Stats Courses

19. Permutations

    Permutations is the official blog of the Mathematical Sociology Section of the American Sociology Association. Posts are written by members and nonmembers.

    Astute Entry: A Case for the Single Blind Review

20. Doing Bayesian Data Analysis

    This site features multiple exercises for practicing Bayesian data analysis (answers included), as well as lists of upcoming workshops at universities across the US.

    Astute Entry: Workshops

21. Straight Statistics

    Straight Statistics aims to uncover and move away from any bad data or misdirecting statistical information. One of their main aims is to draw attention to the way the media uses statistics and promote higher standards in statistical reporting.

    Astute Entry: About Straight Statistics

22. Statisfaction

    Statisfaction is maintained by several PhD students with the goal of sharing statistics information. They primarily share tips and tricks for use at work, interesting articles, and any upcoming conferences.

    Astute Entry: About Satisfaction

23. Newton Statistical Consulting

    Newton Statistical Consulting provides consulting services in research design, data analysis and teaching of statistics to academic, nonprofit, government and business organizations.p>

24. Statistical Horizons Blog

    Statistical Horizons offers statistical training for businesses, non-profits, schools, and government groups. The seminars offered by Statistical Horizons help companies find and keep track of any information they might be missing.

    Astute Entry: About Statistical Horizons

25. The Stats Blog

    The Stats Blog’s mission is to correct any statistical misinformation in the media or in public policy. They work with journalists or policymakers to educate and act as a resource in the area of statistics.

    Astute Entry: About the Stats Blog

26. Honglong Wang’s Blog

    This is the academic blog of Ph.D. student Honglong Wang. It features information on algebraic and Bayesian statistics, as well as applied mathematics, biostatistics, and machine learning.

    Astute Entry: About

27. Numbers Rule Your World

    This blog examines data and graphics as they appear in the media. The statistics professor who runs this site examines the role of data in everyday life.

    Astute Entry: The Mirage of Large Numbers

28. Significance Magazine

    Significance is the bi-monthly magazine of both the Royal Statistical Society and the American Statistical Association. Their goal is to demonstrate the practical use of statistics across all parts of society.

    Astute Entry: About Significance Magazine

29. Consortium for the Advancement of Undergraduate Statistics Education

    CAUSE is an organization that works to further research and education for undergraduate statistics programs. The website is a good resource for professional development, research opportunities, and other prospects in the statistics community.

    Astute Entry: About CAUSE

30. A Programmer’s Guide to Data Mining

    A six-chapter guide to data mining. The author explains the usefulness of data mining and how a programmer will be able to use it after reading this course.

    Astute Entry: Introduction

31. Journal of Statistics Education

    JSE is a collection of electronic statistics resources, including information for students, teachers, and employees in the statistics workforce. The information archive begins in 1993 and data contributors still continue to submit current information.

    Astute Entry: JSE Mission Statement

32. Statistics Jobs

    A huge list of statistics positions across the US. Ranging from biostatistics, healthcare, private corporation, warehouse, and university jobs, this website links each job to its original post or gives instructions on how to apply.

    Astute Entry: Technical Expert

Big Data & Machine Learning

Big Data and Machine Learning are two of the hottest topics in the tech startup community now. Massive companies like Google, Apple, and Amazon are finding more ways to gather user data and monetize it by selling advertisements based on demographic info, or even selling the data itself. Smaller companies are also getting in on the action as it becomes more and more clear that consumer data is one of the most valuable commodities around.

32. Byte Mining

    Byte Mining is run by Ryan Rosario, a current PhD candidate at UCLA. The blog is centered around his views on data mining, programming languages and open source technology.

    Astute Entry: Summary of My First Trip to Strata

33. AnalyticBridge Blogs

    Analytic Bridge is the blog for Data Science Central, a resource for those who work in big data. The blog covers an expansive range of topics and how big data plays into each of them.

    Astute Entry: Here’s What Your Home Will Be Worth in 12 Months

34. Cloudera

    Cloudera leads the industry on software and services based on Apache Hadoop. Primarily, they deal with big data and how it is used within companies. They work in a variety of secotrs, some of whicvh include telecommunications, media, bioinformatics, healthcare, oil, gaming, among others.

    Astute Entry: How-To: Analyze Twitter Data with Hue

35. Messy Matters

    Messy Matters is run by Daniel Reeves, the Senior Researcher at Microsoft Research in New York City. The blog looks at the interworkings of big data, but also his commentary on a variety of topics currently in the news.

    Astute Entry: Lies, Damned Lies, Rape, and Statistics

36. Mango Solutions

    Mango Solutions is a data analysis company headquartered in the United Kingdom. Because of their data analysis services, they’re able to also provide training, consulting, and software.

    Astute Entry: Services

37. Infochimps

    Infochimps’ goal is to simplify big data by making collection and analysis easier and more accessible for retailers and businesses of all sorts. The site was founded by data scientists who have extensive experience on the material.

    Astute Entry: Solutions

38. Nuit Blanche

    Nuit Blanche covers big data, comprehensive sensing, and advanced matrix factorization techniques. Their goal is to give a concise picture, or at least one with more clarity, to those who have less experience with big data.

    Astute Entry: Living On the Edge: A Geometric Theory of Phase Transitions in Convex Optimization

39. Hilary Mason

    Hilary Mason is extremely vocal active in data science and the startup community. She is Chief Scientist at bitly, and has co-founded numerous other groups in the New York area.

    Astute Entry: Why Google Now is Awesome

40. Data Mining: Text Mining, Visualization and Social Media

    Matthew Hurst manages Data Mining and examines particular topics individually so that he is able to expand on them appropriately.

    Astute Entry: Participation and Observation in Search

41. Edwin Chen’s Blog

    Edwin Chen is a Data Scientist at Twitter and majored in Math and Statistics at MIT. His blog posts all look at Big Data and search queries.

    Astute Entry: Improving Twitter Search with Real Time Human Computation

42. Machine Learning (Theory)

    Machine Learning (Theory) is run by John Langford, a Doctor of Learning at Microsoft Research. Posts on the blog typically cover Big Data and wide-scale learning via machines.

    Astute Entry: Deep Learning 2012

Biostatistics

Biostatistics is the use of statistical models to learn about diseases, epidemiology, the effectiveness of medicine, and other biological and medical applications.

43. Simply Statistics

    Three enthusiastic biostatistics professors write articles and link to other important statistics information and interesting scientific ideas. The authors of Simply Statistics are committed to using simple information for real-world use.

    Astute Entry: About Simply Statistics

44. Fresh Biostats

    Fresh Biostats is collaborative website for posting information about research in the biostatistics field. Authors are from different fields, including health services and genetics, and each brings something unique to the biostatistics discussion.

    Astute Entry: FreshBiostats Author Archives

45. Building Confidence

    A discussion of the current state of the bioinformatics field. The website helps to analyze the current education and professional opportunities for those involved in biostatistics.

    Astute Entry: What is bioinformatics?

46. Realizations in Biostatistics

    Statistical consultant in the health and clinical trials field shares results, research, and skepticism. Includes links to other relevant statistical information, including FDA studies.

    Astute Entry: Bad Statistics in High Impact Journals

47. Omics! Omics!

    One scientist’s blog about applying the study of genetics to drug research, which includes discussions of biology, drug discovery and DNA.

    Astute Entry: PacBio Back of Envelope Numbers

Socioeconomic & Political Analysis

By gathering long term voting and census data and taking surveys, it is possible to get statistically significant data about the demographic composition of neighborhoods, cities, and whole countries.

48. Cheap Talk

    Cheap Talk is run by a professor and an associate professor of economics at Northwestern University. They primarily discuss economics, politics, and issues they personally find interest in.

    Astute Entry: Help Us Build Purple Pricing 2.0

49. Dan Ariely

    Dan Ariely is a professor at Duke University and has written books on irrationality, probability, and statistics. His blog discerns the complex language of statistics into something easier to understand.

    Astute Entry: Books

50. Marginal Revolution

    Marginal Revolution is all about small steps to a better world and they do this by breaking down economic issues and providing clarity, but more importantly depth to their analysis.

    Astute Entry: Sentences About Albert Hirschman

51. MacroMania

    MacroMania is run by a member of the research division at the Federal Reserve in St Louis who worked as an economics professor for over 20 years.

    Astute Entry: Krugman on Taylor

52. Chris Blattman

    Chris Blattman is an Assistant Professor at Columbia University in the Political Science Department. Through statistics and working in the field, he is able to compile valuable data on poverty, political participation, cause and effects concerning violence, and policy work of developing countries.

    Astute Entry: Research

53. Stochastic Trend

    David Stern is an energy and environmental economist at Crawford School of Public Policy at the Australian National University and is currently also the Research Director there. His posts commonly look into different implications of resource allocation concerning energy and the implications on the environment.

    Astute Entry: Countries Where Crawford Faculty Got Their PhD’s

54. Random Samplings

    Random Samplings is part of the official blog of the US Census Bureau. Because the census bureau is continually gathering information, Random Samplings helps report some of that information in the areas of marriage, income, education, housing, and more.

    Astute Entry: About Random Samplings

55. Zero Intelligence Agents

    A site about the discipline of data science. The site is maintained by Drew Conway, an intelligence consultant and social scientist.

    Astute Entry: Enter Data Gotham

56. Social Science Statistics Blog

    Hosted by the Institute for Quantitative Social Science at Harvard, this site is primarily conversations and posts on methodological thought, problems, and solutions. Students, faculty, and outsiders are encouraged to participate in reading and comments.

    Astute Entry: Welcome

57. Error Statistics Philosophy

    A conversation on philosophy and statistics, with special focus being paid to fallacies of statistical tests and the role of background knowledge in linking statistical inference. Also includes links to the statistics law, medicine, and economics.

    Astute Entry: Telling the Public why the Higgs Particle Matters

58. Civil Statistician

    In this blog, a statistician for the US Census Bureau named Jerry discusses how he uses his statistics training in his every day work with small area estimation and humanitarian work. He also discusses other developments and resources in the field of statistics.

    Astute Entry: About

R Programming

R is a programming language used often for building statistical models and visualizing large datasets to make them easier to draw conclusions from. There’s a robust community of R programmers online, making it easy to learn the language and find answers to even obscure questions about implementations of R.

59. The R Project for Statistical Computing

    

    The R Project site explains what R is, and offers links to several of the free open source R packages available for download. Also provides a link to help track bugs in the programming.

    Astute Entry: What is R?

60. Burns Statistics Blog

    Patrick Burns shares his knowledge and ideas about programming in the R language and statistics. Burns speculates about the future of R in business and academia, and shares code snippets for other R users to try out.

    Astute Entry: Documents

61. R User Groups

    R User Groups aims to be a grouping place for R users of all experience levels to discuss different issues and developments in the R community.

    Astute Entry: Video on S3 Classes in R by Andrew Robinson

62. Quantide

    Quantide is based exclusively in statistics and deals with consulting and training for applied and computational statistics. They deal almost exclusively with open-source software and use R.

    Astute Entry: Training

63. Probability and statistics blog

    Matt Asher, head of Statistics Blog and graduate of University of Toronto’s Statistics Program, frequently posts about statistics and elaborates on given topics extensively.

    Astute Entry: Minding the Reality Gap

64. Revolutions

    Revolutions is devoted to providing relevant news and information, geared specifically towards members of the R community.

    Astute Entry: Lots of Data! = Big Data

65. DiffusePrioR

    DiffusePrioR focuses on educating people on the ease of using R in econometric research. The blog takes this one topic and expands on it greatly throughout the blog posts.

    Astute Entry: The Cluster Bootstrap

66. R for Public Health

    This site was created to help those in the public health field manage and analyze data using R. The blog operator uses both real-life public health situations and real code to help teach R to public health employees.

    Astute Entry: Extracting Information from Objects Using Names

67. Twotorials

    Twotorials offers dozens of short instructional videos on how to use the R programming language. Each video clocks in under two minutes to be as easy to digest as possible for R beginners.

    Astute Entry: How to Download and Install R

68. R Programming .net

    A simple introductory how-to site for R programming. Great for people new to R programming, or for those looking for examples.

    Astute Entry: How-To’s

69. R Enthusiasts

    A simple consulting and training site for R programming. Uses straightforward examples and tips for new users.

    Astute Entry: Simpler R Help Tooltips

70. Fells Stats

    This site consists of infographics, visual data, and discussions of R programming. Their focus is on examining data to find relationships and relevance.

    Astute Entry: Great Infographic

71. Jeromy Anglim’s Blog: Psychology and Statistics

    Lecturer Jeromy Anglim writes about the relationship between psychology, statistics, and research. Includes posts on R and related technology such as reproducible research.

    Astute Entry: About Jeromy Anglim

72. Quick-R’s statMethods blog

    statMethods blog includes articles that focus on the R language. Posts include information on statistics, analysis, and graphics.

    Astute Entry: About statMethods Blog

73. R-statistics Blog

    A collection of information and exploration of statistics, data, the R language, and open-source software. Maintained by a PhD student of statistics out of Tel Aviv University.

    Astute Entry: About R-statistics blog

74. Statistics, R, Graphics and Fun

    Posts and discussions about R programming, statistics, data and software. Includes many tips and ideas for programmers specifically interested in the R language.

    Astute Entry: About

75. R Cheat Sheets

    Coding and programming cheat sheets for developers. Offers several tip sheets for R programmers, as well as other math based languages.

    Astute Entry: R Reference Card for Data Mining

Data Visualization

Not all data visualization is statistical in nature, but since statisticians often use large, complexly interrelated data sets, it is valuable to be able to generate graphs and other visualizations that are easier to understand for the statisticians themselves and for the public.

76. By Jess

    Jess Bachman is the creative director at Visual.ly, an infographic creation tool. He blogs about design, info visualization, user experience, and many other topics that fuse data, design, and technology.

    Astute Entry: In Search of a Sweet Death

77. Edward Tufte

    Edward Tufte is an infographic designer. Through this website, you can purchase his graphic art in the form of sculptures, posters, or prints, as well as sign up for his one-day graphics course.

    Astute Entry: Edward Tufte Books

78. Visual.ly Blog

    Visual.ly Blog posts infographics, but also lists of them and commentary on the value of visualizing data in the 21st century, versus simple text formats.

    Astute Entry: 5 Science Infographics Everyone Should See

79. Datavisualization

    Datavisualization is a premier source of news and information relating to data visualization and infographics.

    Astute Entry: How We Visualized Life After Fukushima

80. Flowing Data

    Flowing Data blogs a stream of infographics and supplements the content by connecting it to elements of R.

    Astute Entry: Tutorials

81. Cool Infographics

    Cool Infographics constantly posts series of infographics covering a variety of social, climate, and technological issues.

    Astute Entry: Beautiful Animated Wind Maps

82. Nigel Holmes Explanation Graphics

    Nigel Holmes is an Illustrator who has worked for various firms over his extensive career spanning from the mid-1960’s to present. He designs infographics primarily and uses his site to showcase his work.

    Astute Entry: The Rolling Stone 9/11 Infographic

83. Eager Eyes

    Eager Eyes analyzes data visualization techniques and supplements content with commentary on the changing face of data visualization in the world.

    Astute Entry: Study on Creative Data Visualization

84. Information Aesthetics

    Information Aesthetics blurs the line between creative design and information visualization. They also present data and projects that present information in intriguing and otherwise interesting ways.

    Astute Entry: Exploring the Paris Metro in 3D

85. Visual Complexity

    The goal of Visual Complexity is to visualize complex systems to make information more intuitive and easier to understand.

    Astute Entry: Doughnut Economics

86. VizWiz

    VizWiz is run by a Data Visualization Guru who works for Facebook. His posts deal with the interworking parts of data visualization and how he uses Data Visualization in day-to-day work.

    Astute Entry: Putting Tableau to the Test – Every Photo From the International Space Station

87. Statistical Graphics and More

    Statistical Graphics and More typically handles environmental and social infographics, along with just general commentary on earthquake data.

    Astute Entry: Alpha Transparency Explained

88. DataRemixed

    DataRemixed is run by a Tableau Software employee named Ben who loves exploring data and finding ways to share his insights in innovate ways.

    Astute Entry: Holy Mackerel, Uncertainty Matters!

89. Chart Porn

    A huge collection of visual statistics on thousands of topics. Includes charts, graphs, maps, and other interactive data representing information on subjects like food, politics, culture, and employment.

    Astute Entry: About Chart Porn

90. Information is Beautiful Awards

    These awards celebrate the beauty of visualizations and data-as-art. There are 26 prizes with entries from over 20 countries.

    Astute Entry: The Information is Beautiful Awards

91. Visual Business Intelligence

    VBI is a consultancy that helps businesses learn to design, display, and present visual information for effective communication. Through workshops, courses, and other consulting practices, they have worked with government and private practices to become information-educated.

    Astute Entry: About Us

92. The Daily Viz

    Run by a data journalist at NPR, this website collects and shares data visualizations from around the web. Data can be about any topic, including social media, sports, weather, and politics.

    Astute Entry: Where the Recession Hit Us Hardest: An Interactive Map

93. Well-Formed Data

    An interesting discussion of how shared data from the internet affects our understanding of information. The designer of the site focuses on interactive visuals and information aesthetics.

    Astute Entry: Where People Move In Germany

94. Information is Beautiful

    A site of hundreds of polls, facts, figures, and numbers turned into visual representatives – line graphs, charts, and maps. All images are available for sale, with proceeds from the sale keeping the website running.

    Astute Entry: About Information is Beautiful

95. Fathom

    Fathom is a group that designs information graphics for their clients. They also design effective software and tools for all platforms, including mobile devices.

    Astute Entry: About Fathom

96. Jim Vallandingham

    Jim Vallandingham is a software developer with experience in data analysis and visualization. His projects include such interactive tools as the Dallas Neighborhood Comparison Tool and Visualizing the Racial Divide.

    Astute Entry: About Jim Vallandingham

Sports Stats

Any true baseball fan can tell you the RBI of their favorite players, but professional stats hounds take sports statistics to a whole different level.

97. Sabermetric Research

    Sabermetric Research breaks down the effectiveness of statistics when applied to sports and looks at a variety of cases where their effectiveness is proven.

    Astute Entry: NFL Decisions Cost 0.73 Wins Per Team

98. Cybermetrics

    Cybermetrics looks at sports and the application of statistics to them. The blog is run by a professor of economics at San Antonio College.

    Astute Entry: Rabbit Maranville, Mr. RBI

99. The Book: Playing the Percentages in Baseball

    This website is devoted to explaining The Book and its expert analysis of the game of baseball. Focusing on strategies and statistics, this book breaks down all the elements of baseball to help people understand the data aspects of baseball.

    Astute Entry: Defense Value

100. Advanced NFL Stats

     This website delivers detailed game, team, and player analysis across the NFL. There are also player stats, predictions, graphs, and all other football related research and resources.

     Astute Entry: FAQ