Department of Statistics, UCLA

It is pleasure to write a preface for the book ”Regression Analysis” of my fellow series editor Dick Berk. And it is a pleasure in particular because the book is about regression analysis, the most popular and the most fundamental technique in applied statistics. And because it is critical of the way regression analysis is used in the sciences, in particular in the social and behavioral sciences. Although the book can be read as an introduction to regression analysis, it can also be read as a thorough critique of this class of techniques, or at least of some of the methodological superstructure that has been build on top of it. The subtitle, a constructive critique, is appropriate enough if one interprets it as applying to regression analysis in general, but the book does some pretty destructive work in the area of regressing modeling and regression inference. That’s another reason why it is a pleasure to write this preface. I like debunking, and I wholeheartedly agree with Berk that there is plenty to debunk in this area.