How to Lie with Statistics: Difference between revisions

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

The book is a brief, breezy, illustrated volume outlining errors when it comes to the interpretation of statistics, and how these errors may create incorrect conclusions. 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">"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> It has also been widely translated.

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.

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

==See also==

{{wikiquote|How to Lie with Statistics}}

*[[Freakonomics]]

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

*[[Misuse of statistics]]

*''[[The Tiger That Isn't]]'', a book on taking numbers out of context

== Other Books by Darrell Huff ==

* How to Take a Chance

* The Complete How to Figure It: Using Math in Everyday Life

* How to Work with Concrete and Masonry

* Score: The Strategy of Taking Tests

==Notes==

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*[http://www.mooreds.com/wordpress/archives/158 Book review] at www.mooreds.com

*[http://plus.maths.org/content/how-lie-statistics-0 Book review] at plus.maths.org

*[https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/51291.How_to_Lie_with_Statistics Book reviews] at goodreads.com

*Book readable online: [[iarchive:HowToLieWithStatistics|https://archive.org/details/HowToLieWithStatistics]]