How to Lie with Statistics

How to Lie with Statistics is a book authored by Darrell Huff. He wrote it in 1954 with an intention of presenting an introduction to statistics to the readers. The book is brief and entertaining since Huff’s way of writing is attractive. It outlines errors made during interpretation of statistics, and the way they lead to wrong conclusions. 

The book has 10 chapters where, he outlines various errors and tricks applied in statistics. The tricks explained in the book include biased samples, selective averages, omitting pertinent details, deceptive graphing, and imagery, and misrepresenting correlation among others. In the early part of the book, Huff states that the language of statistics is so captivating in the fact-minded society. However, he continues to warn readers that the statistical language may be used to exaggerate, inflate, complicate, and oversimplify. The book explains that statistical terms and procedures are essential in making reports on mass data of social and economic changes, business conditions, and opinion polls in census. However, without writers who use the terms with honesty and comprehension and readers who know what the terms mean, he considers the statistical results useless. He states that crooks already know the tricks and he attempts to address the readers as innocent people who need to know the tricks in order to protect themselves against the deceivers’ tricks. 

In this book, Huff is equipping readers with the relevant expertise and awareness required to see through the many arguable stats presented to them. In the concluding section, he explains how to challenge any statistic systematically in order to avoid being manipulated by deceptive statistics that have not been researched effectively. 

In overall, it is recommended to read this book and it should serve as a revelation for many since Huff has extensively addressed the many tricks used, and the various ways of critically analyzing every statistics with which one is presented.