How to lie with statistics - a bag of tricks
It is not just a phrase - there is actually a book with the title “How to lie with statistics”. It is by Darrell Huff, was first published in 1954 and according to Wikipedia the best selling statistics book in the second half of the 20th century. The examples are from back then, but the points maken are amazingly relevant still today. Huff shows some of the most frequent flawed and fraudulent statistics and it is worth reading for the basic knowledge - as a manual on how NOT to get fooled by the tricks of sales people, lobbyists, evil statisticians or undereducated civil servants.
As a celebration, and because its pretty good fun, I’ll run a series of postings on how to lie with statistics - the tricks of the trade. Most of them will be from the book by Huff, but some of my own experience.