Status Updates From How to Lie with Statistics

“Statistics is as much an art as it is a science.” pg. 122

This should be republished in serial form in popular magazines and newspapers. It’s a good read, especially alongside other examples exactly like the ones described in this book. A widespread understanding of these concepts would make for more reflective readers.

Wow it is so easy to make statistics say anything you want. This book seems to be endless examples of that. One part reminded me of the reports of covid deaths. There were discrepancies caused by deaths strictly CAUSED by covid vs someone contracting covid before passing away due to some other cause.

You don’t see these types of graphs around as regularly. Mostly they can be useful to illustrate a point during a presentation but, any sort of respected study would never use this method of graphing. However, it is a good tip on lying with statistics.

This chapter brought back memories to me of State of Fear by Michael Crichton. This type of graph manipulation is a big topic in that book with a focus on its use in the climate crisis. I like the idea of taking the same sets of data from an article and plotting it differently with a completely different title.

This book might just make me into an annoying person. Always skeptical. I’m curious how precise the earth’s average temperature can actually be measured. I can think of a bunch of other examples of people making much ado about a small negligible difference. Nutrition probably has a lot of these examples.

Honestly, I may never trust a statistic again. So many good quotes in here. I got thinking during this chapter about all the statistics thrown around during covid. It would be so interesting to dive into a deep study on that now after the fact. People could pretty much make statistics say anything they wanted them to say.

This is definitely expanding my perspective on statistics. I always thought “average” meant “mean”. Maybe this has changed over time. Either way, I’ll never trust an “average” again without specifically understanding the type.

This chapter just seemed to reinforce my opinions. Polls are pretty much meaningless and don’t believe it as fact when a study states something like “most Americans believe this…” these type of statistics should only be respected when they are very transparent about how the survey was performed.

I like the author’s style. There’s humor in the misuse of statistics. It’s also interesting to note that this was written almost 70 years ago yet still rings true.