{"id":33145,"date":"2021-04-20T11:56:14","date_gmt":"2021-04-20T15:56:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/?p=33145"},"modified":"2021-04-24T14:18:30","modified_gmt":"2021-04-24T18:18:30","slug":"how-to-lie-with-statistics-book","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/how-to-lie-with-statistics-book\/","title":{"rendered":"The How to Lie With Statistics Book Guide"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>What can you learn from the <em>How to Lie With Statistics <\/em>book? What are the ten techniques that liars use to manipulate statistics? How can you assess if a statistic is reliable?<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>In his book <em>How to Lie With Statistics, <\/em>Darrell Huff explains how people (advertisers, companies, anyone with an agenda) can <a href=\"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/misleading-statistics-examples\/\">manipulate numbers<\/a> to yield statistics that support their cause. Since these people aren&#8217;t actually lying, it isn&#8217;t considered illegal. Huff teaches you what to look out for and how to see through liars.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Continue on for more on <em>How to Lie With Statistics.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n<!--more-->\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\"><strong><em>How to Lie With Statistics<\/em><\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>When searching for the truth, statistics are appealing\u2014they seem like hard, believable numbers<\/strong>, and they\u2019re necessary for expressing certain information, such as census data.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>However, <strong>statistics aren\u2019t as objective as they seem.<\/strong> In the <em>How to Lie With Statistics<\/em> book, author Darrell Huff explains how people who want to conceal the truth manipulate numbers to come up with statistics that support their positions. These people\u2014advertisers, companies, anyone with an agenda\u2014often don\u2019t even have to actually <em>lie<\/em>. Statistics is a flexible enough field that would-be liars can make their case with implications, omissions, and distraction, rather than outright falsehoods.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Not all bad statistics are manipulations or lies, of course.<\/strong> Some are produced by incompetent statisticians; others are accidentally misreported by media who don\u2019t understand the field. However, because most mistakes are usually in favor of whoever\u2019s citing the statistic, it\u2019s fair to assume that a lot of bad statistics are created on purpose.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>In this summary, you\u2019ll learn the techniques shady characters use to lie (or imply) with statistics. You\u2019ll also get a five-step questionnaire for evaluating the legitimacy of statistics you come across.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\"><strong>Technique #1: Misleading With Bad Sampling<\/strong><\/h3>\n\n\n\n<p>To get their numbers, honest statisticians count a sample of whatever they\u2019re studying instead of the whole (counting the whole would be too expensive and impractical) and take steps to make sure the sample\u2019s make-up accurately represents the whole. They do this by making sure the sample is large (this reduces the effects of chance, which only has a negligible impact on large samples) and random (every entity in the group must have an equal chance of being part of the sample).<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>On the other hand, <strong>liars purposely take samples that <\/strong><strong><em>don\u2019t<\/em><\/strong><strong> accurately represent the whole to engineer the results that they want. Or, they take small samples so that chance gives them the results they want.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\"><li>For example, if a liar wants to say that her toothpaste reduces cavities, she might ask 12 people with healthy teeth (as opposed to a group of people with a variety of dental health levels) to start using it. If this group of 12 doesn\u2019t show any reduction in cavities, she can try the same experiment with another group of 12. Since the only possible outcomes of using toothpaste are getting more cavities, fewer cavities, or the same number of cavities, eventually the 12-person sample will by chance all (or mostly) hit on a reduction in cavities. This is much less likely to happen in a sample of, say, 120 people.<\/li><\/ul>\n\n\n\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\"><strong>Techniques #2-6: Fudging the Numbers (or the Point)<\/strong><\/h3>\n\n\n\n<h4 class=\"wp-block-heading\"><strong>Technique #2: Citing Misleading \u201cAverages\u201d<\/strong><\/h4>\n\n\n\n<p>Liars often use <strong>the word \u201caverage\u201d without specifying what <\/strong><strong><em>kind<\/em><\/strong><strong> of average a figure represents. <\/strong>For instance, they may use it to refer to mean\u2014the number that\u2019s the result of adding up all the sample\u2019s numbers and then dividing by the number of samples.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\"><li>(Shortform example: To get the mean income of five people, you\u2019d add up all their incomes and divide by five: 30,000+30,000+50,000+60,000+70,000=48,000.)<\/li><\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p>Giving the mean is advantageous for liars because it hides large inequalities.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\"><li>(Shortform example: If 90 employees at a company are paid $20,000 a year and the boss is paid $200,000, the mean pay is ((90*20,000)+(1*200,000))\/91=21,978. The mean hides that one person is paid a lot more than everyone else.)<\/li><\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p>In turn, <em>hiding<\/em> that they\u2019re using the mean, by simply using the word \u201caverage\u201d to describe the figure, benefits liars by obscuring the fact that they\u2019re using such an unreliable calculation.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h4 class=\"wp-block-heading\"><strong>Technique #3: Giving Precise Figures to Appear More Reputable<\/strong><\/h4>\n\n\n\n<p>Another number-fudging technique is to <strong>include a decimal in a statistic to make a figure look more precise and therefore reputable.<\/strong> Liars can engineer decimals by doing calculations (for example, calculating the mean) on inexact figures<strong> <\/strong>that weren&#8217;t measured to the decimal point.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\"><li>(Shortform example: If you ask 100 people how much they spent on groceries in the last month, they probably won\u2019t remember exactly. Even if they give you round, approximate numbers, if you calculate the mean, you\u2019ll likely end up with a decimal. For instance, (20+30+60)\/3=36.66666&#8230; This number is meaninglessly more precise than the measures you started with, but it looks good.)<\/li><\/ul>\n\n\n\n<h4 class=\"wp-block-heading\"><strong>Technique #4: Using Percentages to Hide Numbers and Calculations<\/strong><\/h4>\n\n\n\n<p>Like decimals, giving percentages instead of raw figures can make numbers look more precise and reputable than they really are. (Shortform example: If two out of three people prefer a certain cleaning product, this can be expressed as 33.333\u2026%. The decimal adds precision and implies reputability.)<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Here are some additional ways liars manipulate percentages and their associated terms for their gain:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>1. Hiding raw numbers and small sample sizes.<\/strong> Percentages don\u2019t give any indication of the absolute value of raw figures, so liars can use them to mask unfavorable numbers or suspiciously small sample sizes.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\"><li>(Shortform example: If a stock was worth $1 yesterday and $2 today, that\u2019s a 100% increase, which looks impressive. However, the actual difference is only $1, which looks unimpressive.)<\/li><\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>2. Using different bases.<\/strong> Because percentages don\u2019t give any indication of the raw figures (bases) used to calculate them, liars can compare percentages calculated off different bases to distort their results.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\"><li>For example, <em>The New York Times<\/em> once reported that after taking a 20% cut last year, union workers got a 5% raise the next year, which gave them back <em>one-fourth of their cut wage<\/em>. This claim of it being one-fourth of their cut wage refers to 5% being one-fourth of 20%. However, the workers didn\u2019t actually get 5% of their <em>original <\/em>wage back, they got a 5% increase on their <em>new, lower <\/em>wage, which is a smaller number. The 20% cut and the 5% increase were calculated off different bases, so weren\u2019t directly comparable.&nbsp;<\/li><\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>3. Adding up percentages. <\/strong>Percentages aren\u2019t numbers\u2014you can&#8217;t meaningfully add or subtract them.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\"><li>For example, imagine you buy 20 vegetables at the grocery store and all of them cost you 5% more than they did last year. If you add together all of those 5% increases, you get a 100% increase (20*5%=100%). This could be reported as \u201cthe cost of living has gone up by 100%.\u201d But in reality, it hasn\u2019t\u2014it\u2019s gone up by 5%, and all products were affected.<\/li><\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>4. Giving percentage points instead of percentages to confuse people. <\/strong>Percentage points are the difference between two percentages. For instance, the difference between 5% and 7% is two percentage points. If a liar doesn\u2019t want to report how much money her company made, and her return on investment was 3% last year and 6% this year, she might say \u201creturn on investment rose three percentage points.\u201d A three-point increase <em>sounds <\/em>much smaller than a doubling, even though they mean the same thing in this case.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h4 class=\"wp-block-heading\"><strong>Technique #5: Omitting Statistical Qualifiers<\/strong><\/h4>\n\n\n\n<p>The last way to fudge numbers is to <strong>leave out information that puts caveats on their accuracy or further explains them.<\/strong> There are <a href=\"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/four-types-of-information\/\">four types of information<\/a> liars often neglect to include with their figures:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>1. Probable error. <\/strong>Probable error is a measure of how reliable a figure is, expressed as a range that the true result will fall between. (It\u2019s impossible to find the <em>single <\/em>number that represents the true result because measuring systems aren\u2019t perfectly accurate.) Therefore, if you\u2019re presented with a single figure, and aren\u2019t given any indication of how accurate it is, it may not be accurate at all.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\"><li>For example, if an IQ test has a probable error of 3 and you score 98, this means that your IQ is somewhere between 95-101 (98-3=95, and 98+3=101). The real number is equally likely to be any number in that range. So, simply telling someone that your IQ is 98 isn\u2019t accurate.&nbsp;<\/li><\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>2. Degree of significance.<\/strong> The degree of significance is a measure of how likely it is that results are due to chance. In most cases, for a figure to be statistically significant, the degree needs to be no more than 5%\u2014this means that 95 out of 100 times, the results are real and not attributable to chance. If the degree <em>isn\u2019t<\/em> given, it may be higher than 5%, which means the results could be due more to chance than anything else.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>3. What the comparison is to. <\/strong>Some stats promise to \u201ctriple\u201d the effectiveness of a product, or offer \u201c25% more,\u201d but don\u2019t say what they\u2019re compared against. A granola bar that contains 25% more protein than a competitor\u2019s, versus a bar that contains 25% more protein than a rock, are two entirely different things.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>4. Negligibility. <\/strong>While there may be <em>mathematical <\/em>differences between figures, sometimes, these differences are so small they don\u2019t make any <em>practical <\/em>difference\u2014but liars fail to point this out.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\"><li>For example, one brand of cigarette may contain a <em>slightly<\/em> smaller amount of poisonous compounds than another. It\u2019s still toxic.<\/li><\/ul>\n\n\n\n<h4 class=\"wp-block-heading\"><strong>Technique #6: Citing Semi-Related Figures<\/strong><\/h4>\n\n\n\n<p>If liars can\u2019t find a calculation that gives them figures they like, another technique they use is to focus on <em>other<\/em> figures that <em>do<\/em> seem to support what they have to say: in other words, to fudge the point. If they can\u2019t prove something, sometimes, <strong>they\u2019ll prove something else that sounds like it&#8217;s the same as what they were trying to prove.&nbsp;<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\"><li>For example, if a cold medicine company can\u2019t prove that their drug cures colds, but they can prove that it kills germs in a lab, they might advertise that their medicine \u201ckills 15,000 germs.\u201d Killing germs <em>isn\u2019t <\/em>the same as curing colds (colds probably aren\u2019t even caused by germs), but they\u2019re close enough that people might think the medicine actually works.<\/li><\/ul>\n\n\n\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\"><strong>Technique #7: Attributing Correlation to Causation<\/strong><\/h3>\n\n\n\n<p>This technique involves <strong>pushing the idea that if there\u2019s a relationship between two factors, one of them caused the other<\/strong>, and whichever factor is most favorable to a liar\u2019s argument is the cause.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\"><li>For example, one study found that smokers got lower grades in college. A non-smoking activist with an agenda might report this as \u201cIf you stop smoking, your grades will improve.\u201d<\/li><\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p>This is misleading because:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>1. It\u2019s often impossible to know which factor is the cause and which is the effect.&nbsp;<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\"><li>For example, people struggling with the stress of bad grades could be driven to smoking for relief: In other words, bad grades could be the cause of smoking, not the effect of it.<\/li><\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>2. Both factors may be effects of some <\/strong><strong><em>other <\/em><\/strong><strong>cause.<\/strong> While the relationship between the factors <em>is<\/em> real, the cause-and-effect is uncertain.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\"><li>For example, maybe the same people who smoke are the same people who have low grades because they like socializing more than studying.<\/li><\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>3. The relationship between the two factors may be only due to chance.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>4. Even if there <\/strong><strong><em>is <\/em><\/strong><strong>a real cause-and-effect relationship, that doesn\u2019t mean it applies to everyone.<\/strong> Correlations are tendencies.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\"><li>For example, while it\u2019s fairly conclusive that people who get a post-secondary education have higher incomes than those who don\u2019t, that doesn\u2019t mean that <em>you<\/em> will <a href=\"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/make-more-money\/\">make more money<\/a> if you go to college than if you don\u2019t.<\/li><\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>5. Correlations can be caused by humans and trends, rather than the factor you <\/strong><strong><em>think <\/em><\/strong><strong>they\u2019re caused by.&nbsp;<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\"><li>For example, older women tend to walk with their toes farther apart than younger women. This is because posture trends changed over the years, not because women\u2019s posture necessarily changes as they age (which is what some people may assume).<\/li><\/ul>\n\n\n\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\"><strong>Techniques #8-10: Manipulating Images<\/strong><\/h3>\n\n\n\n<h4 class=\"wp-block-heading\"><strong>Technique #8: Truncating Graphs or Add More Divisions to the Y-Axis<\/strong><\/h4>\n\n\n\n<p>To make changes look larger than they are, liars remove the empty space on a graph so that the part the data occupies is the only part shown. This will make the slope of a line look steeper, or the difference between bars look greater.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\"><li>For example, from this graph, it\u2019s obvious that there\u2019s little difference in profit from year-to-year:<br><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/lh6.googleusercontent.com\/4bA9NpRfhE6Ral37Xi3pEG7VDGwax6m1mVeMm9KlAkP6JQHrM-SYveGFjlXhgRg4fVqgZl-Mlt_a1T2jHp-_KWpEsAzfbwr3Tb0SX0RGn2IRi0jj9EyGyFBjGgOi_1GUaIiHTj-c\" width=\"621\" height=\"385\"><br>In this graph, which uses the same data as the first graph but has more divisions and has been truncated, profit looks significantly different from year to year:<br><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/lh6.googleusercontent.com\/SWvUlwrcmUQ-DahPXkIZi4g1UJ1DJrPDRyE1oyGEYTsAgeNCwVphd39mGl1jlYFUypU2h3OdmL_XcXVvNHBi-ADVdHEOvK7OthKkPKosBZcIXH0p2Ogb6XTv6eoeWURwObQi4cMc\" width=\"609\" height=\"376\"><\/li><\/ul>\n\n\n\n<h4 class=\"wp-block-heading\"><strong>Technique #9: Failing to Include Labels and Numbers on Graphs<\/strong><\/h4>\n\n\n\n<p>If diagrams and graphs don\u2019t have labels or numbers, it\u2019s impossible to know what they show.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\"><li>For example, one <a href=\"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/how-to-start-a-marketing-business\/\">advertising agency<\/a> presented a graph that showed a steadily rising line. The y-axis showed time in years, but the x-axis had no label. Presumably, it was profit, but without further <a href=\"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/negative-labels\/\">labeling<\/a>, it was impossible to know if profits were jumping by millions or cents.<\/li><\/ul>\n\n\n\n<h4 class=\"wp-block-heading\"><strong>Technique #10: In Bar Graphs, Using Illustrations Instead of Bars<\/strong><\/h4>\n\n\n\n<p>In a bar chart, the height of the bar is what indicates the measurement. If you replace a bar with an illustration, when you increase the height of the illustration, all the other dimensions scale proportionally. Increasing the width and depth (if 3-D) of the image makes the differences between the two images\u2014and thus the differences between what the images represent\u2014look much larger than they really are.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\"><li>(Shortform example: In the illustration below, the skulls represent the death rate from a certain illness. Before a liar\u2019s medication was adopted, the death rate was 60 out of 1 million, represented by a skull at height 60. After adoption, the death rate halved to 30, represented by a skull at height 30. However, visually, the rate appears to have dropped by far more than half because the image appears to have decreased by more than half: The whole image was scaled proportionally, rather than just the height being halved.)<br>Death rate pre-adoption:\ud83d\udc80Death rate post-adoption:\ud83d\udc80<\/li><\/ul>\n\n\n\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\"><strong>Assessing the Legitimacy of Statistics<\/strong><\/h3>\n\n\n\n<p>In the previous sections of the <em>How to Lie With Statistics <\/em>book, you learned liars\u2019 techniques for misrepresenting statistics. Now, you\u2019ll learn about a five-question checklist you can go through every time you encounter a statistic to assess its legitimacy. The goal is to find balance\u2014<strong>you don\u2019t want to swallow statistics without thinking about them<\/strong> (it\u2019s often worse to know something wrong than to be ignorant), <strong>but you also don\u2019t want to be so suspicious that you ignore <em>all<\/em> statistics and miss out on important information.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Here are the evaluation questions:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>1. What is the source of the statistic?<\/strong> The first thing to do when confronted with a statistic is to figure out where it\u2019s coming from. If the source might have an agenda, you should be suspicious of the statistic. (Note that liars often borrow the numbers of reputable organizations, such as universities or labs, but come to their own conclusions using those numbers. Then, then try to make it look like <em>their <\/em>conclusion is the reputable organization&#8217;s conclusion, to give their conclusion more credibility. Check if the organization that provided the numbers is the same one that provided the conclusions drawn from them.)<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>2. What was the data collection method? <\/strong>Any data that\u2019s based on what respondents say, or how motivated they are to respond to a survey, can skew the truth. When confronted with a statistic that was calculated based on people\u2019s responses, ask yourself if there were any reasons the respondents might have been motivated to lie.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\"><li>For example, one census in China, for military and tax purposes, found the population of one region to be 28 million. The next census, for famine relief purposes, found the population of the same region to be 105 million. The population hadn\u2019t changed much over the five years in between censuses\u2014people were just a lot keener to be counted when it meant famine relief than when it meant getting taxed.<\/li><\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>3. Is any relevant information omitted? <\/strong>Figures exist in context. If a figure is cited on its own, ask yourself if there is other relevant information that might qualify the figure further, and if leaving that information out would further anyone\u2019s interests.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\"><li>For example, an environmentalist who wants the government to regulate pollution might cite a high death rate during pollution-driven foggy weather in London and attribute the deaths to the fog. However, this doesn\u2019t represent how the world works\u2014people die for plenty of reasons that don\u2019t have anything to do with the weather, and the high death rate could have been caused by something else. A more accurate statistic would be to cite the death rate accompanied by the cause of death: This would show how many people <em>truly<\/em> died due to fog.<\/li><\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>4. Is the language surrounding the figures misleading? <\/strong>Study the words surrounding the figure and consider their definitions (to twist their results to suit their argument, liars may not use the most common definition of an everyday word, as you learned with \u201caverage\u201d).&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\"><li>(Shortform example: Anything can be the \u201cfirst,\u201d \u201cbiggest,\u201d or \u201cbest\u201d of its kind, depending on how people define these words. For instance, the \u201cbiggest\u201d waterfall in Canada is Niagara Falls (if \u201cbig\u201d means the largest volume of water falling) or Della Falls (if \u201cbig\u201d means highest).)<\/li><\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>5. Does the statistic make sense? <\/strong>Ask yourself if whatever the statistic reveals seems right, if it conflicts with any well-known facts, or if it\u2019s suspiciously precise.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\"><li>For example, one urologist calculated that there are eight million cases of prostate cancer in the US. At the time, the male population of the US was less than eight million, which meant the figure couldn\u2019t be accurate.<\/li><\/ul>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>What can you learn from the How to Lie With Statistics book? What are the ten techniques that liars use to manipulate statistics? How can you assess if a statistic is reliable? In his book How to Lie With Statistics, Darrell Huff explains how people (advertisers, companies, anyone with an agenda) can manipulate numbers to yield statistics that support their cause. Since these people aren&#8217;t actually lying, it isn&#8217;t considered illegal. Huff teaches you what to look out for and how to see through liars. Continue on for more on How to Lie With Statistics.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":8,"featured_media":33209,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[40,15,25],"tags":[268],"class_list":["post-33145","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-books","category-education","category-statistics","tag-how-to-lie-with-statistics","","tg-column-two"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO Premium plugin v24.3 (Yoast SEO v24.3) - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>The How to Lie With Statistics Book Guide - Shortform Books<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"In the book How to Lie With Statistics, Darrell Huff reveals 10 techniques people use to manipulate stats and how to assess them. 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