Damned Lies and Statistics: Untangling Numbers from the Media, Politicians, and Activists (Hardcover)

by Joel Best (Author) "Nineteenth-century Americans worried about prostitution; reformers called it "the social evil" and warned that many women prostituted themselves..." (more)
Key Phrases: promoting social problems, claims about social problems, stat wars, Park Police, United States, Million Man March (more...)

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review
When it comes to thinking about statistics, there are four kinds of people: awestruck, naive, cynical, and critical. According to sociologist Joel Best, the vast majority of people are naive (yes, you too probably suffer from a mild case of innumeracy), and the result is mutant statistics, guesswork, and poor policy decisions. "Bad statistics live on," writes Best in this highly accessible book, "they take on lives of their own." Take this one: a psychologist's estimate that perhaps 6 percent of priests were at some point sexually attracted to young people was transformed through a chain of errors into the "fact" that 6 percent of priests were pedophiles. Then there was the one about eating disorders. An original estimate that 150,000 women were anorexic, made by concerned activists, mutated into 150,000 women dying from the disorder annually (the truth: about 70 women a year). But these two mutant statistics have been published and passed along as facts for years, enduring long after the truth has been pointed out.

In an effort to turn people into critical thinkers, Best presents three questions to ask about all statistics and the four basic sources of bad ones. He shows how good statistics go bad; why comparing statistics from different time periods, groups, etc. is akin to mixing apples and oranges; and why surveys do little to clarify people's feelings about complex social issues. Random samples, it turns out, are rarely random enough. He also explains what all the hoopla is over how the poverty line is measured and the census is counted. What is the "dark figure"? How many men were really at the Million Man March? How is it possible for the average income per person to rise at the same time the average hourly wage is falling? And how do you discern the truth behind stat wars? Learn it all here before you rush to judgment over the next little nugget of statistics-based truth you read. --Lesley Reed

From Publishers Weekly
Who really said, "There are lies, damned lies, and statistics" Mark Twain or Benjamin Disraeli? Best, professor of sociology at the University of Delaware and author of several books, including Random Violence, settles the question once and for all: Disraeli (whom Twain credits for his use of the remark in his autobiography). The quote's misattribution is similar to the twisted course statistics often take as they "mutate" into bar-chart monsters with slim if any relation to the original numbers or reality. For instance, a few years ago it was estimated that 150,000 American women are anorexic. Somehow, this mutated into an erroneous if not dangerous statistic: 150,000 women die annually from anorexia. Since only about 55,500 American women between 15 and 44 (the age range for most cases of anorexia) die from all causes each year, this number challenges common sense and the ability of reporters to question what they write about. But it has become a frequently cited, "authoritative" figure that's hard to dispute. Best explains in untechnical language important statistical concepts like "dark figures," "false positives" and "false negatives," and how statisticians often err in comparing dissimilar groups (e.g., test scores of American high school students to those of Europeans, with their multitrack systems of secondary education). He has an annoying habit of italicizing words and phrases to emphasize a point, and he conflates "activists" and "advocates" (academic writers' favorite bogeymen as purveyors of suspect statistics), but these are minor issues. This informative and well-written little book will be a particularly worthwhile addition to libraries' collections and will help all readers become savvier and more critical news consumers.

Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information, Inc.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 190 pages
• Publisher: University of California Press; 1 edition (May 8, 2001)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0520219783
• ISBN-13: 978-0520219786
• Product Dimensions: 8.2 x 5.4 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 12 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.8 out of 5 stars See all reviews (31 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #17,198 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

47 of 49 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Nice, tight treatment of statistics as a social activity, October 9, 2001

By	Peter Lorenzi (Maryland, USA) - See all my reviews (TOP 1000 REVIEWER)

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.

35 of 38 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Reading and understanding statistics for good decisions, August 10, 2001

By	Ken Friedman "Ken Friedman" (Oslo, Norway, and Copenhagen, Denmark) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

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. ....

38 of 42 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

By	Eugene A Jewett "Eugene A Jewett" (Alexandria, Va. United States) - See all my reviews (TOP 1000 REVIEWER)

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