Sublime

This book is a sort of primer in ways to use statistics to deceive. It may seem altogether too much like a manual for swindlers.

How Does He Know?

What’s Missing?

To say “almost one and one-half” and to be heard as “three”—that’s what the one-dimensional picture can accomplish.

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

Did Somebody Change the Subject?

comparisons between figures with small differences are meaningless. You must always keep that plus-or-minus in mind, even (or especially) when it is not stated.

Not all the statistical information that you may come upon can be tested with the sureness of chemical analysis or of what goes on in an assayer’s laboratory. But you can prod the stuff with five simple questions, and by finding the answers avoid learning a remarkable lot that isn’t so. Who Says So?