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55 of 57 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Nice, tight treatment of statistics as a social activity, October 9, 2001
This review is from: Damned Lies and Statistics: Untangling Numbers from the Media, Politicians, and Activists (Hardcover)
Are ten percent of Americans gay? Is the white male in the work force rapidly becoming a minority? Are 150,000 young American women dying each year from anorexia? Joel Best clearly answers "no" to each of these three questions and, more importantly, shows why many people would say "yes". His point is that descriptive statistics are the product of a social activity, not just a representation of society. Social advocacy causes people to collect the data that they feel will best support their preconceived notions: They talk to unrepresentative groups. They start to collect new measures and then wonder why the "statistics" have grown since ten years earlier (when they weren't much -- if at all -- measured). They multiply erroneous assumptions. They mutate data. And the press and other publications carry the mutations forward. This book offers plenty of illustrations of intentions run amok. Many of the reports provide useful information for a classroom lecture on the need to discern if a person is "speaking rot", as Harold Macmillan once said was the primary purpose of an education. A good, crisp 171 pages in length, it is absent discussion of the more difficult inferential statistics and, as a result, it is easy to understand by the lay person.
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40 of 42 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Reading and understanding statistics for good decisions, August 10, 2001
This review is from: Damned Lies and Statistics: Untangling Numbers from the Media, Politicians, and Activists (Hardcover)
This is a book about reading and understanding statistics. It is not a book on research methods. As a book that helps to analyze and think critically about statistics, however, it is a book on methodology: the critical comparison of method issues. Best’s point is a central issue in modern industrial democracy. If we are going to make effective policy choices as citizens and voters, we must understand the issues on which we make decisions. The same holds true for the decisions we make in business life and in research. Many of the choices we make are based on statistical evidence. To make informed choices, therefore, we must be able to think about statistics. A quick summary of the issues and topics in this book offers a good overview of clear thinking on statistical issues. Chapter 1, “the importance of social statistics,” explains where statistics come from, how we use them, and why they are important. Chapter 2, “soft facts,” discusses sources of bad statistics. Guessing, poor definitions, poor measures, and bad samples are the primary sources of based statistics. Good statistics require good data; clear, reasonable definitions; clear, reasonable measures; and appropriate samples. Chapter 3 catalogues “mutant statistics,” the methods for mangling numbers. Most of these arise from violating the four requirements of good statistics, but a new problem arises here. Where is relatively easy to spot bad statistics, mutant statistics require a second level of understanding. As statistics mutate, they take on a history, and it becomes necessary to unravel the history to understand just how - and why - they are mutant. Transformation, confusion, and compound errors create chains of based statistics that become difficult to trace and categorize. Chapter 4, “apples and oranges,” describes the dangers of inappropriate comparison. Dangers arise when comparisons over time involve changing and unchanging measures, and projections. Comparison among places and groups lead to problems not merely in the data measured, but in the ways that data may be gathered and collated. Comparison among social problems also creates unique difficulties. Best offers logic of comparison to help the reader understand how to make sense of good comparison and bad. Chapter 5, “stat wars,” describes the problems that arise when advocates use questionable numbers to make a case. Chapter 6, “thinking about social statistics,” sums up Best’s advice on understanding statistics. Don’t be awestruck in the face of numbers, and don’t be cynical about them, he suggests. Be critical and thoughtful. This book is recommended for every non-statistical researcher who is required to make some use of statistical results in his or her work. It will be especially helpful for those designers who belong to the 2% of the population that one study identifies as victims of UFO abduction. ....
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40 of 44 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Hard when you discover that it isn't really where it's at, August 21, 2001
This review is from: Damned Lies and Statistics: Untangling Numbers from the Media, Politicians, and Activists (Hardcover)
Joel Best writes a book about statistics for everyman. He does it without using confusing bell curves, without charts of T1 -T2 - T3 standard distributions, and without the i.e. "greater than-lesser than" hieroglyphics one finds in statistical textbooks. This is a book that should accompany a short course given every year of schooling from 7th grade through the end of high school. Think of how difficult this would make it for manipulators of every kind i.e. social researchers, social activists, big corporations e.g. tobacco companies, government agencies, the major media, charities, big labor unions, congress, the White house, who all share something in common; an agenda with which they seek to manipulate the common man. A democracy only works if it has an educated citizenry, and the understanding of the manipulation of statistics, in a society such as ours, probably the most complex in the history of mankind, is essential. The author doesn't try to overwhelm the reader with the many nuances of statistical research and evaluation, he instead implores him or her to rise above being awestruck, naive or cynical about the numbers. He implores us all to engage in critical analysis, in critical thinking. He uses many examples of statistics that are obviously incorrect and tells us how to look behind their numbers and their subsequent conclusions. It doesn't take long to read, and it should be required reading for all of us who vote in our myriad elections. "If it were to be the case the world would be a better place", and from a practical standpoint the Florida post election fiasco would have been resolved sooner. And, social security would be reformed to the benefit of the bottom half of income tax payers. Learning how statistics are compiled, manipulated, and used is crucial to keeping any society on an even keel. Let's hear it for Joel Best and let's hope he writes his next work as a metaphor. Maybe Disney will pick it up so the message will reach, and reinforce the children
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