How to lie with statistics

An excellent, easily accessible book that explains common techniques for using statistics to deceive the unwary. The examples are dated-- there's a bit of culture shock in seeing discussions of income from half a century ago!-- but quite clear. The book has lost none of its relevance since it was

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written.

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This old book is one that endures despite its age. It is a humorous look at how statistics can be used, manipulated, and twisted to say just about anything that you want. In the larger sense, it is important to understand how facts can be spun to represent or create the reality you want to portray.

A classic. A great guide to understanding statistical claims in journalism, advertising and politics.

Easily the most entertaining introduction to statistics and critical thinking I've come across. (What's my experience rate, you ask? You must have read the book!)

While many examples are dated, they remain relevant and the lessons on how to separate the wheat from the chaff are vital. This should be

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required reading, but that may make it even more inaccessible. Let's do a study on that!

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How to lie with statistics has become a classic since its publication almost sixty years ago. In an easy to read style, author Darrell Huff explains basic statistics and how results can be skewed by using different statistical techniques and graphs. He tells the reader how to get the best

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advantages while, at the same time, he warns the consumer what may be happening and why things look so “bad” or “good.”

The chapter on averages was exceptionally clear with the explanations of mean, median and mode. I now know what stasticulating means and how to do it or recognize it. In fact, I will not look at statistics in any newspaper or journal article again without questioning the methods and results.

My copy is the original edition with cartoon drawings by Irving Geis. The examples are from the fifties and seem terribly outdated. However, the important information is not outdated and is still relevant. If you need to understand how statistics work and how they can be manipulated for any purpose, this book is just right.

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Somewhat outdated, somewhat still relevant. Scientific statistics became more reliable, usually providing margin of error and similar parameters. In terms of advertisement/media not much has changed. It was amusing to read about some artifacts from 60 years ago.

This book illustrates common ways to distort statistics. The most valuable part of this book is the last chapter, in which the author arms the reader with a series of questions to help him think critically in the face of authoritative-sounding numbers. This book is funny, educational, and should be

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required reading for every critical thinker.

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Great little book, and entertaining too, statistically improbable anyone could make statistics amusing.

A reissue of the 1954 classic, the author details many of the mistakes, either deliberate or accidental, that people make when deploying statistics in support of their pet cause. A handy corrective to the current culture of statistical malapropism, and a valuable tool to arm yourself against the

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barrage of bogus statistics and misinterpreted data that assail us every day.

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Don't believe anything!
This fast little read does an amazing job uncovering the methods of presenting misleading statistics. This book was first published in 1954, but it reads as fresh as ever. People with axes to grind have been employing the same subversive tactics since statistics have been

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popularized. Furthermore, this book is often funny, hilarious even, particularly with the illustrations. The "claim to fame" statistic on the cover is an almost certainly deliberate illustration of ironic contempt for misleading statistics. After all, just because "Twighlight" was a bigger seller than "Anna Karenina" doesn't make it better.

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For a book to remain in print for fifty years it must be good. This one was originally published in 1954 and, as far as I can tell, has been in print ever since. A book less than 150 pages long, generously seeded with amusing cartoons is not what you would expect to find on a graduate school

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reading list but that is exactly where I learned about this one. Darrell Huff and illustrator Irving Geis produced a little marvel with their book “How to Lie with Statistics”. As Huff points out early in the book a cat-burglar who writes a how-to memoir in prison does not do it for other cat-buglers. They already know how to burgle. The intended audience is people who do not want to be burgled, or, in the case of this book, lied to.

Huff is careful to spread the blame for lying statistics widely, overeager researchers, poor information gathering by statisticians, advertising people willing to apply lipstick of any color to their pig, journalists looking for a marketable story. The fact that most of these lies are “true” is not ignored. For me the most memorable story he uses to make this clear is the restauranteur who explains his rabbit-burger is 50% rabbit, he mixes it in a 1 to 1 ratio with horse-meat. One rabbit to one horse.

After nine chapters of explaining how easy it is for statistics, charts, graphs, and percentages to lie the last chapter makes a serious attempt to explaining how we can avoid being lied to by asking a few simple questions like, who says so, how does he know, what’s missing, and does it make sense. As Huff points out it is important to be able to detect these lies, not just because of misleading advertisements but because we have elections every few years.

As an amateur historian who is just a few years younger than this book I have to admit I enjoyed the window into the past that the many cartoons offered. Yes, we really dressed and smoked like that. The books age was a little disconcerting when Huff dissected an article about the income of the “average” Yale graduate. Going to Yale hardly seemed worth the $25,000 income it offered until I ran it through an inflation calculator, then it made sense. This book is one of the most informative and fun books I have read in a long, long time. It was informative not because I know nothing about statistics, I do, it was informative because nether of the classes I have taken on statistics covered how easy it is to miss-use or misunderstand exactly what it is the numbers say. If you do not like being lied to, consider reading this book.

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This book explains how numbers and statistics can be manipulated to reflect data results in one's favor. The writing is easy to understand and the author uses relevant examples. However, since this book was originally written in 50s, the examples are a little out dated. Nevertheless, a teacher

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could find comparative examples using recent situations and events. This would be a great book to use when talking to students about the importance of displaying their data accurately. It could also be used in a history class when talking about politics and election polls.

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I received this book as a required text for a first year university writing class, but it is invaluable to anyone who wants to understand how writers, politicians, and the media manipulate statistics to support their own point of view.

Now I know, and so should you, but you probably won't read the book, so I've done it for you.

When I saw How to Lie with Statistics in the free books boxes I jut had to grab it. This is the grand-daddy of line of books about bias in statistics which lead to such descendants as John Allen Paulos’ A Mathematician Reads the Newspaper. I’s a short read that uses humor to impress the subject

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on the population rather than stridency.

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What catches you first is its title. What keeps you in it are the examples, humor, and illustrations. Yes, it is somewhat dated, but certainly not outdated and is still relevant -- possibly more than ever with the lifetimes-worth of content on the web. Reading this book will help you sniff out the

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bad stuff so you can focus on the information that counts.

The main theme is fairly simple: don't take a number at face value -- there's chicanery afoot. Yes, people want to win arguments and make gains. It turns out numbers help with this. Even if there isn't an element of chicanery (the word's used a lot in the book), clumsiness or carelessness can still lead to false conclusions, and each chapter describes a mischievous tactic for twisting a number to come to those conclusions.

There aren't too many pages and the lessons are invaluable. Take a few hours to read this and keep the lessons in your frontal lobe when you meet numbers supporting conclusions.

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A good cursory introduction to how easy it is to send wrong messages through statistics. A bit unnerving how a lot of this is still applicable. Don't expect to learn Inception-level skills.

I picked up this book because a statistics professor I loved read about it. I found my statistics professor explained the ideas better than the book. I also found the book VERY dated. I was expecting an amazing book, and was disappointed.

Absolutely necessary classic for anyone who values logic and commonsense.

Short and interesting primer on how to understand the weaknesses behind statistics. We are thrown statistics in one shape or another all the time but what do they actually mean? What is the average? And which "average"? This book shows how statistics can be manipulated and teaches you to be

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skeptical. You learn how to question the conclusions, the graphs, and the data. Concise, practical, and entertaining read. Though the book was published a while ago, the lessons are still relevant today. Would recommend for those who want to be appreciate the subtleties of statistics or be more aware of how numbers can be used to deceive.

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Very good read. Should be required before anyone is allowed to read or write the "News". Next question is will they use it to write better or lie better?

Sixty years after its first edition, this book is still true to its purpose: how to catch a lot of tricks, half-truths and purposeful omissions in everyday statistics.

Written for the layman and useful for the specialist, knowledge of these "tips" is more useful than ever in our information

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overloaded society. Do yourself a favor and get a copy.

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Classic of its kind that hasn't aged a bit since it came out many years ago. A very practical guide to how statistics can be misused, either intentionally or not. A must-read for anyone exposed to statistics on a regular basis -- which means anyone that reads a newspaper or magazine, or watches

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television!

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This was entertaining, and I think it could serve as a good introductory text to thinking skeptically about information presented as fact (information literacy skills ahoy!). If you're already familiar with the main deceptive practices for information reporting, you're not going to learn anything

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new and different.

However, it was informative by implicitly revealing some of the concerns of yesteryear. You know, irrelevant things like electoral college votes, toothpaste promises, the assessment of education, and so. :)

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