Status Updates From How to Lie with Statistics

For school

ceviri basarisiz, bazi noktalari anlamak ya cok zor ya da mumkun degil..
ayrica yazim hatalariyla dolu. istatistik ile ilgili bir kitap yazilirken “onalti” degil de “on alti” yazilmasi gerektigini bilmek gerekli diye dusunuyorum. bunun disinda (belki de baskidan) “-in” ekleri “-m” olarak yazilmis..

“The crooks already know these tricks; honest men must learn them in self-defense” = bars

SOMEBODY SEDATE ME

Kill me

going okay, actually really interesting although the vocab is hard to get your head around sometimes, thought a book on stats and research could be good reading for psychology. there’s some big indicators that it was written in the 80s though 😭😭

It is way much fascinating!

I'm not reading this because I plan to manipulate my results or denigrate stats, but more to understand how stats can be misused so I can avoid doing that...? I think it might be a tad dated since it was published in the '50s, but it's a classic, and apparently kind of funny...? So I don't know, might actually be a fun read lol.

to lendo pra uma matéria mas acabou que to gostando

Interesting so far. Loving the concise over view and how it’s easy to follow.

Really great advice being given!

I’m not even going to pretend I understand what I’m reading

"It is sad truth that conclusions from such samples, biased o too small or both, lie behind much of what we read or think we know"

I own this book, reading on Kindle

“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.

Great little book

Super interesting.

Another summer reading book! 🫠

Starting to really enjoy it.

A lot of information to digest but still provides a lot of value. Discusses sampling techniques and how they can be used to manipulate results as well as different types of averages (median, mode and mean) and how they can also be used for the same purposes.

Demonstrated a very important aspect of how IQ measures a biased average towards people with selectively favoured abilities

Something I did not quite like about the book (so far) is the way it presents the concepts.. some sentences are constructed in a weird and confusing way imo.

Done with chapter 1.

The book looks promising and interesting, providing valid reasons not to believe every single statistic we see due to built-in sample biases (as discussed in chapter 1).