How Science Takes Stock: The Story of Meta-Analysis

Rating:
Summary: A Model of Popular Science Writing
Review: Morton Hunt has done a masterful job of explaining meta-analysis. Not only does he make a complex statistical technique accessible and understandable, he also provides an interesting history of the method and of its founders. I recommend this book both as a practicing meta-analyst and as a keen reader of popular science writing.

Rating:
Summary: Popular account
Review: Presents meta-analysis through biographical accounts of noted cases of its use. The book is very readable, but I found it rather disturbing, because in making to stories more *interesting*, the author is frequently sensationalist. This has (to me, at least) the cumulative effect of undermining the credibility of the synthetic approach.