Audiobook3 hours
How To Lie With Statistics
Written by Darrell Huff
Narrated by Bryan DePuy
Rating: 3.5 out of 5 stars
3.5/5
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About this audiobook
Now available in audio for the first time! Darrell Huff's celebrated classic "How to Lie With Statistics" is a straight-forward and engaging guide to understanding the manipulation and misrepresentation of information that could be lurking behind every graph, chart, and infographic. Originally published in 1954, it remains as relevant and necessary as ever in our digital world where information is king—and as easy to distort and manipulate as it is to access.
A pre-cursor to modern popular science books like Steven D. Levitt's "Freakonomics" and Malcolm Gladwell's "Outliers", 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. Critically acclaimed by media outlets like The New York Times and the Wall Street Journal and recommended by Bill Gates as a perfect beach read, "How to Lie With Statistics" stands as the go-to book for understanding the use of statistics by teachers and leaders everywhere.
"A hilarious exploration of mathematical mendacity…. Every time you pick it up, what happens? Bang goes another illusion!" — The New York Times
"In one short take after another, Huff picks apart the ways in which marketers use statistics, charts, graphics and other ways of presenting numbers to baffle and trick the public. The chapter “How to Talk Back to a Statistic” is a brilliant step-by-step guide to figuring out how someone is trying to deceive you with data." — Wall Street Journal
"A great introduction to the use of statistics, and a great refresher for anyone who's already well versed in it." — Bill Gates
"Mr. Huff's lively, human-interest treatment of the dry-as-bones subject of statistics is a timely tonic…This book needed to be written, and makes its points in an entertaining, highly readable manner."— Management Review
"Illustrator and author pool their considerable talents to provide light lively reading and cartoon far which will entertain, really inform, and take the wind out of many an overblown statistical sail." — Library Journal
"A pleasantly subversive little book, guaranteed to undermine your faith in the almighty statistic." — Atlantic
A pre-cursor to modern popular science books like Steven D. Levitt's "Freakonomics" and Malcolm Gladwell's "Outliers", 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. Critically acclaimed by media outlets like The New York Times and the Wall Street Journal and recommended by Bill Gates as a perfect beach read, "How to Lie With Statistics" stands as the go-to book for understanding the use of statistics by teachers and leaders everywhere.
"A hilarious exploration of mathematical mendacity…. Every time you pick it up, what happens? Bang goes another illusion!" — The New York Times
"In one short take after another, Huff picks apart the ways in which marketers use statistics, charts, graphics and other ways of presenting numbers to baffle and trick the public. The chapter “How to Talk Back to a Statistic” is a brilliant step-by-step guide to figuring out how someone is trying to deceive you with data." — Wall Street Journal
"A great introduction to the use of statistics, and a great refresher for anyone who's already well versed in it." — Bill Gates
"Mr. Huff's lively, human-interest treatment of the dry-as-bones subject of statistics is a timely tonic…This book needed to be written, and makes its points in an entertaining, highly readable manner."— Management Review
"Illustrator and author pool their considerable talents to provide light lively reading and cartoon far which will entertain, really inform, and take the wind out of many an overblown statistical sail." — Library Journal
"A pleasantly subversive little book, guaranteed to undermine your faith in the almighty statistic." — Atlantic
Reviews for How To Lie With Statistics
Rating: 3.4271457085828345 out of 5 stars
3.5/5
501 ratings29 reviews
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Sixty years after its first edition, this book is still true to its purpose: how to catch a lot of tricks, half-truths and purposeful omissions in everyday statistics.Written for the layman and useful for the specialist, knowledge of these "tips" is more useful than ever in our information overloaded society. Do yourself a favor and get a copy.
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Classic of its kind that hasn't aged a bit since it came out many years ago. A very practical guide to how statistics can be misused, either intentionally or not. A must-read for anyone exposed to statistics on a regular basis -- which means anyone that reads a newspaper or magazine, or watches television!
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5What catches you first is its title. What keeps you in it are the examples, humor, and illustrations. Yes, it is somewhat dated, but certainly not outdated and is still relevant -- possibly more than ever with the lifetimes-worth of content on the web. Reading this book will help you sniff out the bad stuff so you can focus on the information that counts.The main theme is fairly simple: don't take a number at face value -- there's chicanery afoot. Yes, people want to win arguments and make gains. It turns out numbers help with this. Even if there isn't an element of chicanery (the word's used a lot in the book), clumsiness or carelessness can still lead to false conclusions, and each chapter describes a mischievous tactic for twisting a number to come to those conclusions.There aren't too many pages and the lessons are invaluable. Take a few hours to read this and keep the lessons in your frontal lobe when you meet numbers supporting conclusions.
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5An excellent, easily accessible book that explains common techniques for using statistics to deceive the unwary. The examples are dated-- there's a bit of culture shock in seeing discussions of income from half a century ago!-- but quite clear. The book has lost none of its relevance since it was written.
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5How to lie with statistics has become a classic since its publication almost sixty years ago. In an easy to read style, author Darrell Huff explains basic statistics and how results can be skewed by using different statistical techniques and graphs. He tells the reader how to get the best advantages while, at the same time, he warns the consumer what may be happening and why things look so “bad” or “good.”The chapter on averages was exceptionally clear with the explanations of mean, median and mode. I now know what stasticulating means and how to do it or recognize it. In fact, I will not look at statistics in any newspaper or journal article again without questioning the methods and results.My copy is the original edition with cartoon drawings by Irving Geis. The examples are from the fifties and seem terribly outdated. However, the important information is not outdated and is still relevant. If you need to understand how statistics work and how they can be manipulated for any purpose, this book is just right.
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5A classic. A great guide to understanding statistical claims in journalism, advertising and politics.