How to Lie with Statistics Reissue Edition

by Darrell Huff (Author), Irving Geis (Illustrator)

733 ratings

ISBN-13: 978-0393310726

ISBN-10: 0393310728

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Over Half a Million Copies Sold--an Honest-to-Goodness Bestseller

Darrell Huff runs the gamut of every popularly used type of statistic, probes such things as the sample study, the tabulation method, the interview technique, or the way the results are derived from the figures, and points up the countless number of dodges which are used to full rather than to inform.

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Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

"There is terror in numbers," writes Darrell Huff in How to Lie with Statistics. And nowhere does this terror translate to blind acceptance of authority more than in the slippery world of averages, correlations, graphs, and trends. Huff sought to break through "the daze that follows the collision of statistics with the human mind" with this slim volume, first published in 1954. The book remains relevant as a wake-up call for people unaccustomed to examining the endless flow of numbers pouring from Wall Street, Madison Avenue, and everywhere else someone has an axe to grind, a point to prove, or a product to sell. "The secret language of statistics, so appealing in a fact-minded culture, is employed to sensationalize, inflate, confuse, and oversimplify," warns Huff.

Although many of the examples used in the book are charmingly dated, the cautions are timeless. Statistics are rife with opportunities for misuse, from "gee-whiz graphs" that add nonexistent drama to trends, to "results" detached from their method and meaning, to statistics' ultimate bugaboo--faulty cause-and-effect reasoning. Huff's tone is tolerant and amused, but no-nonsense. Like a lecturing father, he expects you to learn something useful from the book, and start applying it every day. Never be a sucker again, he cries!

Even if you can't find a source of demonstrable bias, allow yourself some degree of skepticism about the results as long as there is a possibility of bias somewhere. There always is.

Read How to Lie with Statistics. Whether you encounter statistics at work, at school, or in advertising, you'll remember its simple lessons. Don't be terrorized by numbers, Huff implores. "The fact is that, despite its mathematical base, statistics is as much an art as it is a science." --Therese Littleton

Review

“A hilarious exploration of mathematical mendacity.… Every time you pick it up, what happens? Bang goes another illusion!”
- New York Times

“A pleasantly subversive little book guaranteed to undermine your faith in the almighty statistic.”
- Atlantic

Paperback: 144 pages
Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company; Reissue edition (October 17, 1993)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 0393310728
ISBN-13: 978-0393310726
Product Dimensions: 5.5 x 0.4 x 8.3 inches
Shipping Weight: 3.5 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
Customer Reviews: 733 customer ratings
Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #7,421 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #6 in Business Statistics
- #11 in Probability & Statistics (Books)
- #2 in Statistics (Books)

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5 star		67%
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brit

Influential book to me.

Reviewed in the United States on February 25, 2016

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I'm a college student who had to buy this book for a math class. We had a list of books to choose from and I chose this because it seemed to be one of those interesting debunking type writing pieces that give an alternate perspective on something so commonly followed.
With statistics, we see them everywhere and spewing from people's mouths constantly. But where do they come from and why are they unreliable and in what cases are they unreliable?
Darrell Huff kind of hits all aspects of statistics, and is sure that he hasn't crossed his own lines of creating bias; throughout the book he addresses each side the story. What sides am I referring to? The statistician's point of view, whoever's hands it was transferred to thereafter, the media that project this news to viewers, and the viewers point of view. He does this all with such a sense of reliability, because he never fails to leave out an aspect that would undermine his conclusions.
I found a lot of great information in this book, some that has reinforced my beliefs about statistics and others that have provided me with new views on information. With increasing amounts of information available, and that instant communication that allows us to share information faster, we need people to be reading more books like this so they avoid learning a bunch of value-less information from people who haven't "done their homework."
Sometimes statistical deceit is unintentional, while other times it's deliberate. Huff examines each cases, and attempts to provide understanding to all of his readers as to how we can avoid this and the 5 questions we can ask ourselves when we approach information.

If you've either:
- Wondered about news information and how it's history has influenced citizens (and how it really still applies)
- Needed refreshers on the importance of statistics as well as how to approach them
- Struggled with reading statistics or producing statistics
- Enjoyed being offered alternate perspectives on widely accepted practices like presenting information through statistics
- Curious about where people get their information, and why they're quick to spew statistics like it's true knowledge
THEN READ THIS BOOK! :)

49 people found this helpful

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Statistics 101 - Math 101 - Citizenship 101

Reviewed in the United States on October 6, 2017

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This little book was first published in the Fifties and has remained in print even as the cover cost and the examples of merchandise in the book have been ungraded for inflation. Why? Because the principles it teaches are just as important now as then. See how government, big business, pressure groups and labor all manipulate us with number-mangling to indicate changes in prices or wages are better or worse than they really are, or how the government's policy is the right one even though it may be terrible (and on the other hand, how the opponent uses statistics to make things gloomier than reality). Written with a smile, easily understandable, yet with a fine sense of how statistics can be used against us even, allegedly, "for our own good." Every American should have a copy of HOW TO LIE WITH STATISTICS.

26 people found this helpful

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Thought-provoking

Reviewed in the United States on July 26, 2017

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Originally purchased this about six years after it first came out, and used it in college to be more skeptical of graphs in publications. Just bought it again since my consulting involves use of statistics, and reference to its usefulness and potential problems with clients. A fast, thought-provoking read. Some of the negative reviews state it's dated, and the examples are. But that misses the point. The ways in which data is presented hasn't really changed much, and the issues / principles raised in this book are still very valid. There's a tendency to accept at face value graphs and other pictorial representations as fact based on the initial impression. This book reviews some common ways such data can (and is) be misrepresented, and encourages a healthy skepticism. When anyone can buy a statistics software program and plug in numbers based on spurious assumptions and print out a "scientific" appearing graph / pie chart, the basic points raised in this book are all the more important -- especially in this new age of "alt facts".

14 people found this helpful

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Terry Freedman

Still useful after all these years

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on May 3, 2016

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I first read this book at university, where I was studying statistics as part of my degree. However, it has been in the context of other subjects and, indeed, life in general that this book has proven most useful.

The odd-sounding title is easily explained by the author himself. He says he wrote the book much in the same spirit as a burglar might write an instruction manual on how to break into people’s houses — not so much to make it easier for burglars to do so, but so that home-owners can see where their vulnerabilities lie.

These days, the book seems to be even more relevant. Not only are research findings reported in the papers virtually every day, but in education in particular there are quite a few articles of faith that are based on shaky, and sometimes non-existent, foundations.

With chapters like “The well-chosen average”, “The little figures that are not there” and “The semi-attached figure”, the book makes you look at statistics in a different way.

For example, if you were to read a report that tells us that research has shown that 98% of students derive no benefit whatsoever from using technology, you may have a vague feeling of unease about such a finding. However, having read this book you should be able to re-read the report and spot where the statistical sleight of hand occurred (assuming it did occur, of course).

Then again, there are the endless announcements telling us that eating X wards off cancer, causes cancer, is dangerous for people over 40, is only dangerous if you eat more than one a day etc etc ad nauseous. Again, an insight into how some of the figures cited were derived would be immensely helpful in your decision-making.

Illustrated with cartoons by Mel Calman, this light-hearted and slim volume punches way above its weight. Although it was first published over 60 years ago, in 1954, it is still relevant. It should be on every teacher’s shelf and in every school library.

13 people found this helpful

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Dean

Awesome little book on statistics in everyday life.

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on June 19, 2016

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I bought this as a graduate student wanting some entertaining, but hopefully useful, reading on statistics. This was recommended in the back of another short book which I recently bought, so I bought a pre-owned copy. It's only about 120 pages, so it doesn't take more than 2'ish hours to get through.

Overall, I found it to be a pleasant and easy-to-read little book about the misuse, either by accident or design, of statistics in everyday life. It's very basic and doesn't go into any detail about more advanced concepts, but it does what it sets out to do very well - and comes across as extremely accessible to readers from any level. Personally, this is a friendly accompaniment to more advanced statistics reading which i'm engaged with, but could also be picked up by someone who desires an awareness of how to avoid being misled by bad statistics.

It is an old book, but it does hold up well in my opinion. Wouldn't hesitate to recommend it.

5 people found this helpful

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Andrew Dalby

The original that everyone follows

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on January 30, 2015

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If you are a fan of Michael Blastland then reading this book will show you where it all started. The Tiger That Isn't is really an updated version of Huff's book covering many of the same ideas with more recent examples. This is the original that has inspired all the other statistics debunking clones (of which Blastland's is the best I have read so far). So this is important for historical reasons, it shows that in 60 years we are still making the same mistakes and swallowing the same lies. Some of the language is a bit dated - he talks of negroes for example, but it is short readable and accessible to everyone. The examples have influenced statisticians and data journalists for nearly two generations. The only down side is the cost. For 128 pages is a cover price of £9.99 justified for such an old book? That is 8p a page - for that price I want it on parchment.

8 people found this helpful

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Marshall Lord

Invaluable basic primer on how not to use numbers

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on July 27, 2006

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This excellent book is something very unusual.

First, it's about numbers but manages to be both extremely easy to read and very entertaining.

Secondly, although it is so accessible that a ten-year old of average intelligence should be able to understand everything in this book, the points it makes are so universal in application that even someone with much greater mathematical knowledge - and I write this as a graduate with two degrees in a discipline which requires statistical understanding - can find it full of useful reminders and even the odd valuable idea you might not have thought of or heard of.

The book is about how numbers can be manipulated, by accident or design, to trick people into making false conclusions, and how to spot when you are being fed misleading numbers. In this day and age the ability to spot bad statistics is extremely important to everyone and can literally be a life-saver.

I was very surprised indeed to see that a previous reviewer had described this book as "not for everyone." I could not disagree more strongly.

If every voter read this book, fewer bad politicians would be elected on the basis of dishonest campaign statistics, if every consumer read it, fewer bad products would be sold on the basis of dishonest advertising statistics, and if every journalist read it there might be less harm done by scare stories based on bad statistics.

Despite the fact that this book was written many years ago, every single word in it is still very relevant today.

However, anyone with a serious interest in the subject who wants an update on some of the more recent examples of how statistics are misused should still start by reading "How to Lie with Statistics" and then follow up with the equally good "Damn Lies and Statistics" by Joel Best, which is more current and nearly as accessible. The two books complement each other very well.

59 people found this helpful

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vex

brief but cartoons amusing

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on October 27, 2019

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I have only skimmed this book as it is for a friend. It is a very slim volume for the money but I hope he likes it- he is studying business and maths. He should have the time to read it as it is short.

One person found this helpful

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Sphex

I have often seen those damned little dots before, but I never knew until now what they meant

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on December 18, 2008

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There is still much to lament in our ruling classes, but thank goodness we are no longer led by the likes of Lord Randolph, whose epiphany with regard to the decimal point is quoted above. However low your opinion of contemporary politicians, Gordon Brown is unlikely to mistake ".34 per cent" for "34 per cent" (although our financial ruling class would probably reward themselves handsomely for being out by only a factor of a hundred). Before we congratulate ourselves too readily for our mathematical sophistication, we should reflect upon the salutary fact that Darrell Huff's classic text is as necessary today as it was when it was first published over half a century ago. It is remarkable that, despite certain figures showing their age (we might be heading back to an average wage of £1,400 but we're not quite there yet), there is nothing dated about his style. A maths book on statistics from the fifties? If this seems as appetizing as a cold spam butty during a power cut, you're in for a surprise. That decade was not entirely in black and white.

If you spotted the fast one I pulled in the first paragraph, you're either one of "the crooks" who already know these tricks or else are an honest soul who has learned them "in self-defence". Hence the title of this fantastic little book: knowing how a burglar thinks helps secure your house. Most of the time, I would pass over the phrase "average wage" without a second glance. We all know what an average is, don't we? Distant maths lessons are just that for most of us, and even if I'd dredged up the question - what kind of average? - would I have been bothered to ask it? Complacency translates into vulnerability.

"When you are told that something is an average you still don't know very much about it unless you can find out which of the common kinds of average it is - mean, median, or mode." Without a clear understanding of these different kinds of average, you have to hope it doesn't really matter which one is being used, but this is only the case "when you deal with data... that have the grace to fall close to what is called the normal distribution." Otherwise, it makes a big difference, so much so that, "as usually is true with income figures, an unqualified 'average' is virtually meaningless."

Advertisers, of course, are among the most culpable and capable when it comes to lying with statistics (although at least their motives are plain). It is typical of Huff's sense of mischief that, alongside the calculations, he presents us with an ethical dilemma of enormous proportions: should we feel sorry for advertisers who are themselves victims of statistical skulduggery? For example, a magazine publisher is happy to state the median age of its readership, while leaving the kind of average for incomes "carefully unspecified". "Could it be that the mean was used instead because it is bigger, thus seeming to dangle a richer readership before advertisers?"

This is a short book, made even shorter by pictures of cows and charts that take up half a page. (How the innocent-looking graph can be manipulated by adding "schmaltz" is another example of Huff's style: a simple unpicking of the familiar to demonstrate an important point.) It is also unreasonably funny in parts. I don't recall maths, let alone statistics, ever being this entertaining at school. And yet the intellectual content is not compromised. Huff's message is a serious one and perhaps more important now, since our propensity for attaching numbers to almost anything shows no sign of diminishing. It ought to be common knowledge that samples can be "biased by the method of selection", that "well-biased samples can be employed to produce almost any result anyone may wish", that it can be difficult to obtain "a representative sample... one from which every source of bias has been removed", that people who answer survey questions have "a desire to give a pleasing answer", that strange results "crop up when figures are based on what people say".

Most of us can understand these ideas when they are explained by someone like Huff (although it might help not to be an aristocrat). If we're honest, out in the wild without a guide, we're not so sure. Have you ever been scared by "accident statistics"? Would the fact that more people "were killed by aeroplanes last year than in 1910" give you pause for thought? Are modern planes really more dangerous? "Nonsense. There are hundreds of times more people flying now, that's all."

"It is sometimes a substantial service simply to point out that a subject in controversy is not as open-and-shut as it has been made to seem." Or, as Goldacre's slogan has it: "I think you'll find it's a bit more complicated than that..." Both belong to that noble tradition of satire with a serious message, and it is a tribute to Huff's writing style that he can end with a quote from Mark Twain that fits perfectly: "There is something fascinating about science. One gets such wholesale returns of conjecture out of such a trifling investment of fact."

6 people found this helpful

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Or how to catch other people's innumeracy or intellectual laziness

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on June 21, 2010

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Huff's book is an essential piece of reading for pretty much anyone (and particularly people who have not had a thorough grounding in statistics). In this short volume the author succinctly demonstrates some common mistakes, misconceptions and faulty interpretations that are often hoisted upon the unsuspecting victims by companies, governments or journalists. Often this stems less from a design to fool and more from a basic lack of numeracy prevalent in society.

The book has plenty of relevant examples to illustrate the points, and while some will be dated (doctors advertising tobacco), the general principles behind them are as valid today as they were when the book was first written.

On top of that the book contains some hilarious illustrations by Mel Calman, which lighten the mood and make it a pleasure to read.

The book is not a comprehensive guide to statistics, innumeracy or graphical (mis)representation of data but it is a good starting point for all of these. If it strikes a chord, I would also warmly recommend Innumeracy: Mathematical Illiteracy and Its Consequences by John Allen Paulos and Tufte's The Visual Display of Quantitative Information, as well as How to Measure Anything: Finding the Value of Intangibles in Business by Douglas Hubbard.

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Kevin Lau

Buy it for the cartoon illustrations. Read it for the knowledge.

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on January 2, 2020

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This book, while written many many years ago, is exceptionally good at helping anyone understand why statistics can misinterpreted and misrepresented.

There is a more modern book by Alberto Cairo called "How Charts Lie" which I would recommend you to read as well for a more modern take.

Buy it for the cartoon illustrations. Read it for the knowledge.

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John C

What it says on the cover

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on February 2, 2020

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Useful introduction to the pitfalls of stats, still helpful for introductory non-specialist university level courses, and good for puncturing the many misrepresentations of statistical inference by politicians.

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Liam Kelleher

Basic statistics enveloped in an enjoyable book

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on August 23, 2015

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If you don't know the difference between things like mean, median and other averaging techniques like arithmetic, geometric etc then this book might be useful.

If you have heard of all the above then I think you know enough about statistics to know what this book will entail.

An enjoyable read with a good writing style. Just not the statistical nirvana its made out to be.

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Darren

Enjoyable read - don't believe the stats you see - ask

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on June 20, 2013

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Politicians, marketeers and pundits all try to fool us with numbers. It must be right if you have a graph or some numbers that back it up, right?

Well in fact that's not right. This slim and well written book will ensure you ask the questions of any data in front of you, to ask if it makes sense, is correct and can be trusted.

Recommended for data sceptics everywhere.

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Dh Walker

An old book about old tricks still used.

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on August 29, 2015

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Many years ago when I was an LSE Student I was amazed to see this book on my BSc Econ Reading List.
I enjoyed reading it again - now so that I did not lie with Stats - but how I can learn agin just how easily statistics can be bent to
"prove" a case.

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AJL

This book may not teach you anything new, but ...

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on April 2, 2018

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This book may not teach you anything new, but it will make you think again about statistics, surveys and data analysis and look at results in a more critical way. The Calman cartoons support the text perfectly.. I have several copies because I often lend it to friends - and sometimes get it back!

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Susan M Kirby

I was urging a friend to be very cautious when ...

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on May 19, 2017

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I was urging a friend to be very cautious when she reads the word 'average', and see whether it is the mean, the median or the mode. She was unfamiliar with the terms and I recalled this book from decades ago. She got the point - there's a neat illustration - and is now treating manifesto numbers with even greater scepticism!

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Christopher Ejugbo

The best book on statistics

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on January 26, 2014

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This book is a great eye opener. Even though I had a good knowledge of statistics before reading this book. it does shows you many subtle things in terms of data presentation for effect, the use of mean versus median for averages, the source of information, and dealing with correlations.

I have written a blog modelling the ideas from the book but relating it to risks: How To Lie With Risks. [...]

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