Introduction to Data Science

Introduction to Data Science: Statistics and Prediction Algorithms Through Case Studies teaches data science as a way of thinking statistically, not just as a collection of computational tools. Building on the topics covered in Introduction to Data Science: Data Wrangling and Visualization with R, this book is designed for students with some programming experience and basic mathematical maturity, this book builds the foundations of probability, statistical inference, regression, high-dimensional data analysis, and machine learning through real data examples and reproducible R code. It is suitable for one-semester course in advanced data science.

The book shows how to reason about variability, uncertainty, prediction error, model assumptions, and validation. Through case studies involving polling, genetics, baseball, recommendation systems, image classification, and other modern datasets, readers learn how to connect probability models to data, summarize complex information, quantify uncertainty, fit and interpret models, evaluate prediction algorithms, and understand the statistical ideas behind machine learning. Each chapter is designed to support classroom teaching, self-study, and hands-on analysis, with exercises and companion web materials available through the book website.

Key Features:

• Includes base R, data.table, and tidyverse code.
• Focuses on the statistical and probabilistic foundations of machine learning.
• Contains real-world case studies.

Rafael A. Irizarry is Professor and Chair of the Department of Data Science at Dana-Farber Cancer Institute and Professor of Applied Statistics at Harvard. His research focuses on Genomics and he has taught several Data Science courses.