How to Lie with Statistics is Darrell Huff's perennially best-selling[1] 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 when describing the results of statistical research, both intentionally and unintentionally, and how these errors lead to a biased or inaccurate conclusion.
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. The most recent edition — Mentire con le statistiche – has been published in Italian on June 2007.
Some themes of the book are "Correlation does not imply causation" and "Using Random Sampling". It also shows how statistical graphs can be used to distort reality:
- By truncating the bottom of a line or bar chart, one makes differences seem larger than they are
- By representing one-dimensional quantities by two- or three-dimensional objects to compare their sizes, one makes the reader forget that the images don't scale the same way the quantities do.
Notes and references
- ^ "Over the last fifty years, How to Lie with Statistics has sold more copies than any other statistical text." J.M. Steele. "Darrell Huff and Fifty Years of How to Lie with Statistics. Statistical Science, 20 (3), 2005, 205–209.
See also
External Links
- How to lie and cheat with statistics - like the book, this article explains how not to get cheated by other people who are trying to mislead you
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