Damned Lies and Statistics
Untangling Numbers from the Media, Politicians, and Activists
A sociologist on where public statistics come from and why they should be questioned rather than quoted.
Best is a sociologist, and his subject is where public numbers come from: who counted, what they counted, and what was assumed before the counting started. He follows several widely quoted statistics back to their origins, some of them invented, and offers a working scepticism rather than a rejection of quantification.
Recommended by 1 Person
David Spiegelhalter
This is written by a sociologist, so we have moved on from psychology to sociology. I like this book because one of the things that really irritates me as a statistician is when numbers are bandied around as though they are God-given truths and can’t be argued with. There is a nice quote from Joel Best that “all statistics are social products, the results of people’s efforts”.
Interview · September 2011
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