How to Lie with Statistics: Difference between revisions

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{{short description|Book by Darrell Huff}}

[[Image:How to Lie with Statistics.jpg|thumb|100px|right]]

{{sources|date=February 2022}}

{{Infobox book

<!-- |italic title = (see above) -->

| name = How to Lie with Statistics

[[Image:| image = How to Lie with Statistics.jpg|thumb|100px|right]]

| caption = Cover of the first edition

| author = [[Darrell Huff]]

| title_orig =

| translator =

| illustrator = [[Irving Geis]]

| cover_artist =

| country = United States

| language = English

| series =

| subject = [[Statistics]]<br/>[[Social science]]

| genre =

| publisher = [[W. W. Norton & Company]]

| pub_date = 1954

| english_pub_date =

| media_type = Print

| pages = 142

| isbn = 0-393-31072-8

| dewey = 311.2

| congress = HA29 .H82

| external_url =https://archive.org/details/howtoliewithstat0000darr

| external_host = [[Internet Archive]]

}}

'''''How to Lie with Statistics''''' is a book written by [[Darrell Huff]] in 1954, presenting an introduction to [[statistics]] for the [[general reader]]. Not a statistician, Huff was a journalist who wrote many how-to articles as a freelancer.

The book is a brief, breezy illustrated volume outlining the [[misuse of statistics]] and errors in the interpretation of statistics, and how errors create incorrect conclusions.

'''''How to Lie with Statistics''''' is [[Darrel Huff]]'s perenially best-selling<ref> "Over the last fifty years, How to Lie with Statistics has sold more copies than any other statistical text." J.M. Steele. "[http://www-stat.wharton.upenn.edu/~steele/Publications/PDF/TN148.pdf Darrell Huff and Fifty Years of ''How to Lie with Statistics'']. ''Statistical Science'', 20 (3), 2005, 205–209.</ref>

introduction to [[statistics]] for the general reader. Written in 1954, it is a brief, breezy, illustrated volume which explains the errors that can be done during statistical research, both intentionally and unintentionally, and how they cause a biased or inaccurate conclusion.

In the 1960s and 1970s, it became a standard textbook introduction to the subject of statistics for many college students. It has become one of the best-selling statistics books in history, with over one and a half million copies sold in the English-language edition.<ref name="fiftyyears">{{Cite journal|title=Darrell Huff and Fifty Years of ''How to Lie with Statistics''|author-first =J. Michael |author-last =Steele | author-link =J. Michael Steele |journal=Statistical Science |doi=10.1214/088342305000000205 |publisher =[[Institute of Mathematical Statistics]] |doi-access=free|volume=20|issue=3|date=2005|pages=205–209}}</ref> It has also been widely translated.

Over one-half million copies have been sold in the English language edition. In 2003 the Department of Economics of [[Shanghai University]] published an edition in [[Chinese language|Chinese]] which is the most recent of many translations.

Themes of the book include "[[Correlation does not imply causation]]" and "Using [[random sampling]]." It also shows how statistical graphs can be used to distort reality. For example, by truncating the bottom of a line or bar chart so that differences seem larger than they are. Or, by representing one-dimensional quantities on a pictogram by two- or three-dimensional objects to compare their sizes so that the reader forgets that the images do not scale the same way the quantities do.

Some themes of the book are "Correlation not implying causation" and "Using Random Sampling".

The original edition contained illustrations by artist [[Irving Geis]]. In a UK edition, Geis' illustrations were replaced by cartoons by [[Mel Calman]].

==Notes and references==

<references/>

==See also==

* ''[[How to Lie with Maps]]''

*[[Statisticulation]]

*[[Exaggeration]]

*[[Lies, damned lies, and statistics]]

==Notes==

{{reflist}}

==References==

* Darrell Huff, (1954) ''How to Lie with Statistics'' (illust. I. Geis), Norton, New York, {{ISBN|0-393-31072-8}}

==External links==

{{Wikiquote}}

{{Misuse of statistics}}

{{DEFAULTSORT:How To Lie With Statistics}}

[[Category:1954 non-fiction books]]

[[Category:Statistics books]]

[[Category:Misuse of statistics]]