How to Lie with Statistics
 | von Darrell Huff
ISBN: 0393310728 |
"There is terror in numbers," writes Darrell Huff in How to Lie with Statistics. And nowhere does this terror translate to blind acceptance of authority more than in the slippery world of averages, correlations, graphs, and trends. Huff sought to break through "the daze that follows the collision of statistics with the human mind" with this slim volume, first published in 1954. The book remains relevant as a wake-up call for people unaccustomed to examining the endless flow of numbers pouring from Wall Street, Madison Avenue, and everywhere else someone has an axe to grind, a point to prove, or a product to sell. "The secret language of statistics, so appealing in a fact-minded culture, is employed to sensationalize, inflate, confuse, and oversimplify," warns Huff. Although many of the examples used in the book are charmingly dated, the cautions are timeless. Statistics are rife with opportunities for misuse, from "gee-whiz graphs" that add nonexistent drama to trends, to "results" detached from their method and meaning, to statistics' ultimate bugaboo--faulty cause-and-effect reasoning. Huff's tone is tolerant and amused, but no-nonsense. Like a lecturing father, he expects you to learn something useful from the book, and start applying it every day. Never be a sucker again, he cries! Even if you can't find a source of demonstrable bias, allow yourself some degree of skepticism about the results as long as there is a possibility of bias somewhere. There always is. Read How to Lie with Statistics. Whether you encounter statistics at work, at school, or in advertising, you'll remember its simple lessons. Don't be terrorized by numbers, Huff implores. "The fact is that, despite its mathematical base, statistics is as much an art as it is a science." --Therese Littleton
Vital Information for Consumers, not Mathematicians
This book in simple language teaches basic critical analysis and thoughtful consideration of the kind of statistics and graphs that consumers of modern media are presented with every day. It would be fantastic required reading at the high school level, as it shows exactly where and how those statistics can be presented in such a manner as to make one's case stronger than it really is. It's also a fun and easy read. No, statisticians and mathematicians probably wouldn't learn much. I'm a scientist with a Ph.D. though, and keep a copy in my office because I work in a business world where too many PowerPoints make use of exactly the kind of misleading presentation techniques described in the title of this book.
Excellent common sense guide to how Statisitics are abused
This book is an excellent guide to how statistics are manipulated and misused. Speaking as a professional statistician I recommend it highly. Very readable and entertaining, the book goes through the basic ways in which statistics are misrepresented, and how a little common sense can (very often) reveal when extravagant claims are being made. This books is a little dated now (it was written in 1954) but very much worth reading - the ways statistics are manipulated haven't changed much. This book is not a textbook of statistics and is not aimed at college students. Rather, it is aimed at high school students and members of the general public who want to be on their guard against being manipulated by advertising and "studies". The last chapter ("How to talk back to a Statistic") should be required reading for anyone who reads a newspaper or an advertisement. More than anything else, this book teaches how to apply a little common sense to test wild statistical claims.
Figures don't lie, but liars often figure ...
My introduction to this book was by way of the 'required reading' list for my undergraduate statistics course. Bad first impression. But the book turned out to be fun to read, and enormously instructive. The class material for my college statistics course taught me HOW to do statistics, but this book gave me a good beginning understanding into the common methods of the abuse of statistics. Conversely, by implication, it also teaches how to present information in as truthful a manner as possible. The knowledge served me well as I further studied statistics at a graduate level, and continues to serve me as a Government Technical person, constantly working with statistical tools. The book gives a good jump start into the interpretation of data presentations. Now, when I see a "Gee-Whiz Graph" I immediately know that the fluctuations shown in the line or bars are magnified, and I begin at once to look for the real difference (base 0) in the data points. This book is living proof that learning can be fun. I highly recommend it to anyone working with or beseiged by data presented as graphs, averages, trends or any other such means. It will open your eyes.
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