How to Make the World Add Up : Ten Rules for Thinking Differently About Numbers

by Tim Harford

I’ve laid down ten statistical commandments in this book. First, we should learn to stop and notice our emotional reaction to a claim, rather than accepting or rejecting it because of how it makes us feel. Second, we should look for ways to combine the ‘bird’s eye’ statistical perspective with the ‘worm’s eye’ view from personal experience. Third, we should look at the labels on the data we’re being given, and ask if we understand what’s really being described. Fourth, we should look for comparisons and context, putting any claim into perspective. Fifth, we should look behind the statistics at where they came from – and what other data might have vanished into obscurity. Sixth, we should ask who is missing from the data we’re being shown, and whether our conclusions might differ if they were included. Seventh, we should ask tough questions about algorithms and the big datasets that drive them, recognising that without intelligent openness they cannot be trusted. Eighth, we should pay more attention to the bedrock of official statistics – and the sometimes heroic statisticians who protect it. Ninth, we should look under the surface of any beautiful graph or chart. And tenth, we should keep an open mind, asking how we might be mistaken, and whether the facts have changed. I realise that having ten commandments is something of a cliché. And in truth, they’re not commandments so much as rules of thumb, or habits of mind that I’ve acquired the hard way as I’ve gone along. You m...

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