''How to Lie with Statistics'' is a book written by

Darrell Huff Darrell Huff (July 15, 1913 – June 27, 2001) was an United States, 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 ...

in 1954 presenting an introduction to

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 ...

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 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 misus ...

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 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 id ...

" and "Using

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 ...

". 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 illustrations by artist

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 stru ...

. In a UK edition, these were replaced with cartoons by

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 Obse ...

Notes

References

* Darrell Huff, (1954) ''How to Lie with Statistics'' (illust. I. Geis), Norton, New York,

External links

{{DEFAULTSORT:How To Lie With Statistics 1954 non-fiction books Statistics books Misuse of statistics

See also

Notes

References

External links