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How To Lie With Statistics
''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 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. 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, ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Darrell Huff
Darrell Huff (July 15, 1913 – June 27, 2001) was an American writer, and is best known as the author of ''How to Lie with Statistics'' (1954), the best-selling statistics book of the second half of the twentieth century, and for his use of statistics as a tobacco lobbyist. Career Huff was born in Gowrie, Iowa, and educated at the University of Iowa, (BA 1938, MA 1939). Before turning to full-time writing in 1946, Huff served as editor of '' Better Homes and Gardens'' and ''Liberty'' magazine. As a freelancer, Huff produced hundreds of "How to" feature articles and wrote at least sixteen books, most of which concerned household projects. One of his biggest projects was a prize-winning home in Carmel-by-the-Sea, California, where he lived until his death. Social role Stanford historian Robert N. Proctor wrote that Huff "was paid to testify before Congress in the 1950s and then again in the 1960s, with the assigned task of ridiculing any notion of a cigarette-disease link. ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Irving Geis
Irving Geis (October 18, 1908 – July 22, 1997) was an American artist who worked closely with biologists. Geis's hand-drawn work depicts many structures of biological macromolecules, such as DNA and proteins, including the first crystal structure of sperm whale myoglobin. Early life and education Geis was born in New York City, and lived in Anderson, South Carolina for a time. He studied architecture at Georgia Tech from 1925 to 1927, and went on to get a Bachelor of Fine Arts at the University of Pennsylvania in 1929. From there he attended the University of South Carolina from 1932 to 1933, graduating with a degree in design and painting in the midst of the great depression. Career Geis served as a coauthor and illustrator of many biochemical books that were written by Albert Lehninger and Richard E. Dickerson, as well as the book ''How to Lie with Statistics'' by Darrell Huff. He was a frequent contributor to ''Scientific American''. In addition to his technical illustr ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Statistics
Statistics (from German language, German: ''wikt:Statistik#German, Statistik'', "description of a State (polity), state, a country") is the discipline that concerns the collection, organization, analysis, interpretation, and presentation of data. In applying statistics to a scientific, industrial, or social problem, it is conventional to begin with a statistical population or a statistical model to be studied. Populations can be diverse groups of people or objects such as "all people living in a country" or "every atom composing a crystal". Statistics deals with every aspect of data, including the planning of data collection in terms of the design of statistical survey, surveys and experimental design, experiments.Dodge, Y. (2006) ''The Oxford Dictionary of Statistical Terms'', Oxford University Press. When census data cannot be collected, statisticians collect data by developing specific experiment designs and survey sample (statistics), samples. Representative sampling as ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Social Science
Social science is one of the branches of science, devoted to the study of societies and the relationships among individuals within those societies. The term was formerly used to refer to the field of sociology, the original "science of society", established in the 19th century. In addition to sociology, it now encompasses a wide array of academic disciplines, including anthropology, archaeology, economics, human geography, linguistics, management science, communication science and political science. Positivist social scientists use methods resembling those of the natural sciences as tools for understanding society, and so define science in its stricter modern sense. Interpretivist social scientists, by contrast, may use social critique or symbolic interpretation rather than constructing empirically falsifiable theories, and thus treat science in its broader sense. In modern academic practice, researchers are often eclectic, using multiple methodologies (for instance, by ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Internet Archive
The Internet Archive is an American digital library with the stated mission of "universal access to all knowledge". It provides free public access to collections of digitized materials, including websites, software applications/games, music, movies/videos, moving images, and millions of books. In addition to its archiving function, the Archive is an activist organization, advocating a free and open Internet. , the Internet Archive holds over 35 million books and texts, 8.5 million movies, videos and TV shows, 894 thousand software programs, 14 million audio files, 4.4 million images, 2.4 million TV clips, 241 thousand concerts, and over 734 billion web pages in the Wayback Machine. The Internet Archive allows the public to upload and download digital material to its data cluster, but the bulk of its data is collected automatically by its web crawlers, which work to preserve as much of the public web as possible. Its web archiving, web archive, the Wayback Machine, contains hu ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Statistics
Statistics (from German language, German: ''wikt:Statistik#German, Statistik'', "description of a State (polity), state, a country") is the discipline that concerns the collection, organization, analysis, interpretation, and presentation of data. In applying statistics to a scientific, industrial, or social problem, it is conventional to begin with a statistical population or a statistical model to be studied. Populations can be diverse groups of people or objects such as "all people living in a country" or "every atom composing a crystal". Statistics deals with every aspect of data, including the planning of data collection in terms of the design of statistical survey, surveys and experimental design, experiments.Dodge, Y. (2006) ''The Oxford Dictionary of Statistical Terms'', Oxford University Press. When census data cannot be collected, statisticians collect data by developing specific experiment designs and survey sample (statistics), samples. Representative sampling as ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Misuse Of Statistics
Statistics, when used in a misleading fashion, can trick the casual observer into believing something other than what the data shows. That is, a misuse of statistics occurs when a statistical argument asserts a falsehood. In some cases, the misuse may be accidental. In others, it is purposeful and for the gain of the perpetrator. When the statistical reason involved is false or misapplied, this constitutes a statistical fallacy. The false statistics trap can be quite damaging for the quest for knowledge. For example, in medical science, correcting a falsehood may take decades and cost lives. Misuses can be easy to fall into. Professional scientists, even mathematicians and professional statisticians, can be fooled by even some simple methods, even if they are careful to check everything. Scientists have been known to fool themselves with statistics due to lack of knowledge of probability theory and lack of standardization of their tests. Definition, limitations and context One ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Institute Of Mathematical Statistics
The Institute of Mathematical Statistics is an international professional and scholarly society devoted to the development, dissemination, and application of statistics and probability. The Institute currently has about 4,000 members in all parts of the world. Beginning in 2005, the institute started offering joint membership with the Bernoulli Society for Mathematical Statistics and Probability as well as with the International Statistical Institute. The Institute was founded in 1935 with Harry C. Carver and Henry L. Rietz as its two most important supporters. The institute publishes a variety of journals, and holds several international conference every year. Publications The Institute publishes five journals: *''Annals of Statistics'' *'' Annals of Applied Statistics'' *''Annals of Probability'' *''Annals of Applied Probability'' *'' Statistical Science'' In addition, it co-sponsors: * The ''Current Index to Statistics'' * ''Electronic Communications in Probability'' * ''Ele ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Correlation Does Not Imply Causation
The phrase "correlation does not imply causation" refers to the inability to legitimately deduce a cause-and-effect relationship between two events or variables solely on the basis of an observed association or correlation between them. The idea that "correlation implies causation" is an example of a questionable-cause logical fallacy, in which two events occurring together are taken to have established a cause-and-effect relationship. This fallacy is also known by the Latin phrase ''cum hoc ergo propter hoc'' ('with this, therefore because of this'). This differs from the fallacy known as ''post hoc ergo propter hoc'' ("after this, therefore because of this"), in which an event following another is seen as a necessary consequence of the former event, and from conflation, the errant merging of two events, ideas, databases, etc., into one. As with any logical fallacy, identifying that the reasoning behind an argument is flawed does not necessarily imply that the resulting con ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Random Sampling
In statistics, quality assurance, and survey methodology, sampling is the selection of a subset (a statistical sample) of individuals from within a statistical population to estimate characteristics of the whole population. Statisticians attempt to collect samples that are representative of the population in question. Sampling has lower costs and faster data collection than measuring the entire population and can provide insights in cases where it is infeasible to measure an entire population. Each observation measures one or more properties (such as weight, location, colour or mass) of independent objects or individuals. In survey sampling, weights can be applied to the data to adjust for the sample design, particularly in stratified sampling. Results from probability theory and statistical theory are employed to guide the practice. In business and medical research, sampling is widely used for gathering information about a population. Acceptance sampling is used to determine if ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Mel Calman
Melville Calman (19 May 1931 – 10 February 1994) was a British cartoonist best known for his "little man" cartoons published in British newspapers including the ''Daily Express'' (1957–63), ''The Sunday Telegraph'' (1964–65), ''The Observer'' (1965-6), ''The Sunday Times'' (1969–84) and ''The Times'' (1979–94). Early life Born in Stamford Hill, North London, Mel Calman was the youngest of the three children of Clement Calman, a timber merchant, and his wife, Anna (both Russian-Jewish immigrants who came to England about 1912). Evacuated to Cambridge to avoid the Blitz in World War II, he was educated at the Perse School. Failing to gain entrance to read English at University of Cambridge, he returned to London where he enrolled at the Borough Polytechnic Art School. After two years of national service, he studied illustration at Saint Martin's School of Art. Career In 1956, he attempted to find work as a freelance cartoonist. ''Punch'' was discouraging about his ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Lies, Damned Lies, And Statistics
"Lies, damned lies, and statistics" is a phrase describing the persuasive power of statistics to bolster weak arguments, "one of the best, and best-known" critiques of applied statistics. It is also sometimes colloquially used to doubt statistics used to prove an opponent's point. The phrase was popularized in the United States by Mark Twain (among others), who attributed it to the British prime minister Benjamin Disraeli. However, the phrase is not found in any of Disraeli's works and the earliest known appearances were years after his death. Several other people have been listed as originators of the quote, and it is often attributed to Twain himself. History Mark Twain popularized the saying in ''Chapters from My Autobiography'', published in the ''North American Review'' in 1907. "Figures often beguile me," Twain wrote, "particularly when I have the arranging of them myself; in which case the remark attributed to Disraeli would often apply with justice and force: 'There are th ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
