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How to Lie with Statistics

Darrell Huff

Paperback | Pages: 142 pages

Rating: 3.87 | 9863 Users | 1035 Reviews

Describe Books In Favor Of How to Lie with Statistics

Original Title:	How to Lie With Statistics
ISBN:	0393310728 (ISBN13: 9780393310726)
Edition Language:	English

Representaion During Books How to Lie with Statistics

Lies, Damn Lies, and Statistics: The Pirates of the Powerpoint

Darrell Huff uses a simple, but effective literary device to impress his readers about how much statistics affect their daily lives and their understanding of the world.

He does this by pretending that the book is a sort of primer in ways to use statistics to deceive, like a manual for swindlers, or better, for pirates. He then pretends to justify the crookedness of the book in the manner of the retired burglar whose published reminiscences amounted to a graduate course in how to pick a lock and muffle a footfall: The crooks already know these tricks; honest men must learn them in self-defense.

This keeps the book interesting and entertaining, though for anyone even partly trained in statistics, it has very little educational value.

Of course, the title of this book and Huff’s little charade would seem to imply that all such operations are the product of intent to deceive. The intelligent reader would be skeptical — it is the unfortunate truth that it not chicanery much of the time, but incompetence. On the other hand, Huff is pretty clear that the ‘errors’ if that is what they are always seem to come down on the side of the interested party. As long as the errors remain one-sided, he says, it is not easy to attribute them to bungling or accident.

No More Mr. Nice Guy

After being fellow pirates for much of the book, in the concluding chapter Huff finally lets go if his pet charade and faces up to the more serious purpose of the book: explaining how to look a phony statistic in the eye and face it down; and no less important, how to recognize sound and usable data in that wilderness of fraud to which the previous chapters have been largely devoted. He lays down some thumb rules, which in the end comes come down to asking intelligent questions of the stats, especially of the conclusions. Asking such questions require the readers to be aware of the tendency of stats to mislead and to not be dazzled by the numbers.

Huff’s book is primarily an attempt to pull down the high estimation automatically awarded to anybody willing to quote numbers. It is a fun evening read for the expert, who may then roll his eyes and say that there is nothing of real value in the book. But as its popularity attests to, it seems to be an important book for the lay reader, just by serving a reminder that the pirates are still out there — wielding their charts.

Identify Containing Books How to Lie with Statistics

Title	:	How to Lie with Statistics
Author	:	Darrell Huff
Book Format	:	Paperback
Book Edition	:	Deluxe Edition
Pages	:	Pages: 142 pages
Published	:	September 1st 1982 by W. W. Norton & Company (first published 1954)
Categories	:	Nonfiction. Science. Business. Mathematics. Economics

Rating Containing Books How to Lie with Statistics

Ratings: 3.87 From 9863 Users | 1035 Reviews

Column Containing Books How to Lie with Statistics

Lies, Damn Lies, and Statistics: The Pirates of the Powerpoint Darrell Huff uses a simple, but effective literary device to impress his readers about how much statistics affect their daily lives and their understanding of the world. He does this by pretending that the book is a sort of primer in ways to use statistics to deceive, like a manual for swindlers, or better, for pirates. He then pretends to justify the crookedness of the book in the manner of the retired burglar whose published

Noting that this book was published in 1954, one may instantly discount the information as outdated. However, there are recent events that can be related to some of the examples author Darrell Huff provides, and helps to increase the book's value.For those who have fleetingly or never studied statistics, this is a good place to start. It is a quick and easily understandable read, written in plain English and with plenty of examples to prove the author's points. Personally, I have studied

When Bill Gates recommends a book, one cannot help but check it out. This is one of the most interesting and practical books I have read in a while. The book asks questions of the numbers that are thrown in our face everyday. I felt it has added another layer to my critical thinking skills and set myself apart from those who panic at daily news. Books like these will not give shortcuts to climbing a corporate ladder or increase salaries overnight; what it enforces is something more subtle: peace

Short-read but points out clearly with examples the numerous fallacies of statistical interpretation that one can easily be tricked into thinking.

I love the title. The content feels outdated. I think people lie with statistics much better today than when this was published. Yay, we're improving!

First few chapters made sense. Post that, I started questioning my own reasons for picking this up in the first place. While it's a small book already, it's summary would have sufficed just as well.

This book was published in 1954 and some of the examples are dated but the principles it puts forth are still valid today--if not more so than ever--and the material is delivered in clear, concise, and even entertaining anecdotes and illustrations. It is also an easy read that can be easily finished in one day of concentrated effort.How often do you hear statistics bandied about in the media or used to try to prove some special-interest point? "Of course" the people quoting the figures must be