viii CONTENTS those books to every reader of this one.Some R books with"introductory"in the title that I recommend are Introductory Statistics with R by Dalgaard [19]and Using R for Introductory Statistics by Verzani [87].Surely there are many,many other good introductory books about R,but frankly,I have tried to steer clear of them for the past year or so to avoid any undue influence on my own writing. I would like to make special mention of two other books:Introduction to Statistical Thought by Michael Lavine [56]and Introduction to Probability by Grinstead and Snell [37].Both of these books are free and are what ultimately convinced me to release IRUR under a free license, too. Please bear in mind that the title of this book is "Introduction to Probability and Statistics Using R",and not"Introduction to R Using Probability and Statistics",nor even"Introduction to Probability and Statistics and R Using Words".The people at the party are Probability and Statistics;the handshake is R.There are several important topics about R which some individuals will feel are underdeveloped,glossed over,or wantonly omitted.Some will feel the same way about the probabilistic and/or statistical content.Still others will just want to learn R and skip all of the mathematics. Despite any misgivings:here it is,warts and all.I humbly invite said individuals to take this book,with the GNU Free Documentation License(GNU-FDL)in hand,and make it better. In that spirit there are at least a few ways in my view in which this book could be improved. Better data.The data analyzed in this book are almost entirely from the datasets package in base R,and here is why: 1.I made a conscious effort to minimize dependence on contributed packages, 2.The data are instantly available,already in the correct format,so we need not take time to manage them,and 3.The data are real. I made no attempt to choose data sets that would be interesting to the students;rather, data were chosen for their potential to convey a statistical point.Many of the data sets are decades old or more (for instance,the data used to introduce simple linear regression are the speeds and stopping distances of cars in the 1920's). In a perfect world with infinite time I would research and contribute recent,real data in a context crafted to engage the students in every example.One day I hope to stumble over said time.In the meantime,I will add new data sets incrementally as time permits More proofs.I would like to include more proofs for the sake of completeness (I understand that some people would not consider more proofs to be improvement).Many proofs have been skipped entirely,and I am not aware of any rhyme or reason to the current omissions.I will add more when I get a chance. More and better graphics:I have not used the ggplot2 package [90]because I do not know how to use it yet.It is on my to-do list. More and better exercises:There are only a few exercises in the first edition simply because I have not had time to write more.I have toyed with the exams package [38]and I believe that it is a right way to move forward.As I learn more about what the package can do I would like to incorporate it into later editions of this book.viii CONTENTS those books to every reader of this one. Some R books with “introductory” in the title that I recommend are Introductory Statistics with R by Dalgaard [19] and Using R for Introductory Statistics by Verzani [87]. Surely there are many, many other good introductory books about R, but frankly, I have tried to steer clear of them for the past year or so to avoid any undue influence on my own writing. I would like to make special mention of two other books: Introduction to Statistical Thought by Michael Lavine [56] and Introduction to Probability by Grinstead and Snell [37]. Both of these books are free and are what ultimately convinced me to release IPSUR under a free license, too. Please bear in mind that the title of this book is “Introduction to Probability and Statistics Using R”, and not “Introduction to R Using Probability and Statistics”, nor even “Introduction to Probability and Statistics and R Using Words”. The people at the party are Probability and Statistics; the handshake is R. There are several important topics about R which some individuals will feel are underdeveloped, glossed over, or wantonly omitted. Some will feel the same way about the probabilistic and/or statistical content. Still others will just want to learn R and skip all of the mathematics. Despite any misgivings: here it is, warts and all. I humbly invite said individuals to take this book, with the GNU Free Documentation License (GNU-FDL) in hand, and make it better. In that spirit there are at least a few ways in my view in which this book could be improved. Better data. The data analyzed in this book are almost entirely from the datasets package in base R, and here is why: 1. I made a conscious effort to minimize dependence on contributed packages, 2. The data are instantly available, already in the correct format, so we need not take time to manage them, and 3. The data are real. I made no attempt to choose data sets that would be interesting to the students; rather, data were chosen for their potential to convey a statistical point. Many of the data sets are decades old or more (for instance, the data used to introduce simple linear regression are the speeds and stopping distances of cars in the 1920’s). In a perfect world with infinite time I would research and contribute recent, real data in a context crafted to engage the students in every example. One day I hope to stumble over said time. In the meantime, I will add new data sets incrementally as time permits. More proofs. I would like to include more proofs for the sake of completeness (I understand that some people would not consider more proofs to be improvement). Many proofs have been skipped entirely, and I am not aware of any rhyme or reason to the current omissions. I will add more when I get a chance. More and better graphics: I have not used the ggplot2 package [90] because I do not know how to use it yet. It is on my to-do list. More and better exercises: There are only a few exercises in the first edition simply because I have not had time to write more. I have toyed with the exams package [38] and I believe that it is a right way to move forward. As I learn more about what the package can do I would like to incorporate it into later editions of this book