How to Lie with Statistics

The central theme of How to Lie with Statistics is the importance of critical thinking. The book’s purpose, as Darrell Huff states in Chapter 10, is to provide a general audience with the means to spot manipulative statistics in their everyday lives. Most of these faulty statistics rely on people not paying much attention to what they are seeing and the fact that, for many, “the magic of numbers brings about a suspension of common sense” (140). The issue is not merely the bad statistics themselves but that ordinary people fall for them because numbers and data are “appealing in a fact-minded culture” (10). Logic, data, and demonstrable fact are uplifted in the modern world as having more value than opinions. When people want to lend credibility to opinions or other unprovable matters, they often mimic sound statistical studies. As a result, the untrained reader cannot differentiate good statistics from bad ones.

Each book chapter provides ways to apply a critical lens to many deceptive practices. Huff uses the first few chapters to address how to be aware of problems in collecting and analyzing data samples. The following few chapters cover how to give visuals a second look to see if they are missing or manipulating the results they present.