Saturday, July 25, 2020

The Statistical Illiterate

In 1954 a gentleman by the name of Darrell Huff wrote a book titled "How To Lie With Statistics".

Darrell Huff was not a statistician. He was a journalist.

In the the decades that followed the publication of the book it became one of the biggest selling books on statistics in history. It was used by many colleges as a means of introducing young students to the study of statistics.

The uncanny thing about the book is that it not only provided an easy to understand way to interpret statistics, it literally provided an even easier means to understand how media and advertising use statistics to mislead the public. 

It should be required reading for everyone, if only for self-defense.

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