Reddit reviews How to Lie with Statistics
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Statistions, how to lieDarrell HuffIllustrated by Irving GenisNew York - London 5 6 7 8 9 0
How to Lie With Statistics by Darrell Huff
It's a pretty quick read about how true information can be used in misleading ways.
Edit: Two other redditors have pointed out that you can find it for free here.
Shit post is an embarrassment to those with articulate complaints about the media that are derived from long considered impacts of particular types of violations within journalists ethics (most of these complaints center on the media's presentation of statistics). With great power must come responsibility and desire for truth above all else.
This may seem verbose, but the issue is highly specific and important, so I feel it warrants the specificity.
How to Lie with Statistics, Modinomics 101
> As of March 30, the number of accidents recorded in 2017-18 stood at 73 — 29 per cent fewer than the 104 in 2016-17.
> In 1968-69, the number of railway accidents fell to three digits for the first time — to 908 from the 1,111 in the previous year. Three figures have remained the norm ever since — except in 1980-81
Here is a detailed story in 'The Hindu', Nov-2017, with detailed infographics:
> Death on the rails: India’s track record., Despite establishing itself as the country's prime mode of transport, the Indian Railways has to contend with a dubious safety record
Looks like the story itself is some elaborate PR spin, planted right at the end of the FY, with the most good-looking number carefully cherry-picked.
> “We are absolutely keeping our fingers crossed and if you see, there is immense emphasis on safety everywhere,” Chairman Railway Board Ashwani Lohani told The Sunday Express.
If only the ministers cut down on their boot-licking time, and put in more diligence in improving the reality rather than just managing the jhumla optics.
> We reject any allegation sought to be made against Amit Shah's son Jay Shah: Piyush Goyal
Just wow... This is complete preconceived nonsense. This isn't using "arithmetic" whatsoever, this is an introduction course into how to lie with statistics. Look, I am for some gun control, but this article is terrible.
>The duo reviewed available data stretching as far back as World War I, then drew up equations to compute whether policies ranging from a total firearm ban to "arm everyone" increase or decrease homicides. After running the numbers, they found that in more common domestic and one-on-one crimes, reduced legal gun availability – if properly enforced – is likelier to lower deaths.
They purposefully went back only to WW1 because if they went to the preceding decades, they'd start to see their prejudices destroy their preconceived conclusions. It wasn't until gun control started that the problems they desired to show began. Union led gun control started right around that time.
----
Look, the fact of the matter is that urbanization has more to do with gun violence than availability of guns. Before massive urbanization, gun violence was at about 1/10th the present rate. Back then, there were ZERO gun restrictions, everyone owned a gun, and gun violence back in the "wild west" days was approximately 1/10th the present rate.
Completely abandon this article, it is horribly written and horribly reasoned with a patent preconceived conclusion. If you want to know the true cause of gun violence look no further than this: human beings are horrible things; when we're in cramped spaces and subjected to high stress and low comfort we're bound to attack one another. If we don't have guns, we'll use knives, if we don't have knives, we'll use our hands...
I had a highschool math teacher who always told us to be warry of statistics and even had a book he shared.
How to Lie with Statistics https://www.amazon.com/dp/0393310728/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_api_i_mfP4DbK80WD65
friend of mine worked at a company that was highly metrics driven. Only nobody in his division knew statistics at all.
I joked to him to read "how to lie with statistics"
https://www.amazon.com/How-Lie-Statistics-Darrell-Huff/dp/0393310728
The mad bastard actually read it cover to cover. He ran roughshod. Justified massive headcount increases, made his numbers look amazing, got promoted. Shit was hilarious. He has since moved on.
This is a classic example of How to Lie with Statistics.
Just because people in rural & remote counties have fewer possessions and make less money, doesn't mean they're materially poorer in a qualitative sense.
I have a lot of shit I wouldn't need if I lived in Mississippi. (I know because I spent a few years in Mississippi). It costs much more to live where I live and it takes more income and more stuff to live here. But I was much better off in Mississippi in terms of quality of life materially.
If you look at the map of red vs. blue counties you can see the blue are concentrated in urban and coastal, which actually makes this a comparison of geographically different kinds of economies and a therefore a fallacious statistic.
tldr; increased consumerism and the increased cost/income associated with high consumerism does not equate to better or worse material conditions when you compare rural regions with urban regions. People lie with statistics
One of the things I loved about this piece is how he revealed two very sneaky statistical tricks used by those pushing the narrative that the science is against the memo. I'm as much of a sucker for seemingly solid statistical claims as the next guy, so I really appreciate having my eyes opened about how misleading they can be.
(Yes, I'm familiar with the Twain/Disraeli quote and this book too.)
how to lie with statistics by darrell huff
I have a book for him.
http://www.amazon.com/How-Lie-Statistics-Darrell-Huff/dp/0393310728
Anyone have any book recommendations for a 26 year old? No topic in particular, not necessarily financial/business or otherwise, just any suggestions?
I'm currently reading:
https://www.amazon.com/How-Not-Be-Wrong-Mathematical/dp/0143127535
I'm not far into it, but it's basically on how to properly apply mathematics and logic to problem-solving. It's not exactly a new strategy for life or anything, but it's probably a good idea to read if you're analytical. I got it off Bill Gates reading list.
https://www.amazon.com/How-Lie-Statistics-Darrell-Huff/dp/0393310728
Found through the reading list- This one I've finished and can't recommend enough. It's from the 50's and it's intended reader were investment bankers. The main suggestion is hide yourself from bad information because you can't eliminate the impact it'll have on your decision making, and we aren't exactly equipped to know what's good or bad if we don't have experience in that realm already. It's a lot of common stuff people use stats for to push a product service policy etc.
https://www.amazon.com/Starship-Troopers-Robert-Heinlein/dp/0441783589/
I'm really into it. I love sci-fi. I don't necessarily love philosophy, but I'm really enjoying this book. It's hard for me to read a lot of at once but I don't ever want to put it down. The mindset of the character and narration really gets me. Since reading this, I've heard or noticed many many recommendations for Heinlein, though I'm unsure. He seems to be a proponent of fascism, but I guess he could just be writing down the fantasy of the particular fascist society he created and not necessarily saying "ya know this is how we should be" I don't know. I see conflicting things.
> They source the OECD report.
They source data from OECD and WHO and then do this.
> Well it's not better than other countries health systems,
Again based on what metrics?
> and it cost more
Is the French system worse then the Sinaporean system because France spends more?
> I think it's a stretch to say it performs as well as it could.
No healthcare system performs as well as it could. Even if we could rank efficacy position would be irrelevant from a policy perspective, you still need to improve even if you are ranked first.
Actually they do....
https://www.amazon.com/How-Lie-Statistics-Darrell-Huff/dp/0393310728
Also, you have anecdotal evidence, which is not much evidence at all.
Thirdly, this is a repost.
This reminds me of the book "How to Lie with Statistics"
http://www.amazon.com/How-Lie-Statistics-Darrell-Huff/dp/0393310728/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1404410530&sr=8-1&keywords=how+to+lie+with+statistics
Manipulating stats is quite easy, but how many people are really going to investigate how they collected those stats.
If every republican read how to lie with statistics -Darrell Huff (1954) Fox viewership would drop. Hell, Democrats or anyone for that matter should read this. It makes trusting a news source a lot harder when you immediately pick out devious tricks to engineer partial truths.
How to Lie with Statistics - Darrell Huff
https://www.amazon.com/dp/0393310728/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_apa_i_AZEgDb4HMAXFY
Critical thinking is something that we stomp early, and that stays pretty well stamped out without some care and attention.
In his AMA earlier today, Neil Degrasse Tyson suggested that children are born scientists, who bring a sense of curiosity and wonder to everything they do. Adults are usually the ones whose minds slam shut.
Our schools, our churches, our upbringing in general teaches us precisely how to be accepting and uncritical. Those systems simply demand belief in what is being offered as though it were indicative of some capital-T "Truth".
So, your job needs to be to start thinking like a child again. Everything you encounter needs to be questioned and interrogated. Remember: You've been raised to do precisely the opposite, so this won't be easy. You need to continually remind yourself to look for the holes, the flaws, the shortcomings in the arguments that are put forward.
I would recommend the following things:
The more you practice, the easier you'll find it to keep an open mind, and be willing to entertain evidence which challenges your beliefs and opinions. You'll even welcome those challenges, because they help you advance your knowledge and understanding.
Do those things, and you'll find that all of the questions you pose here become much easier to deal with over time.
This statistic is thrown around all the time, and is almost totally meaningless. Did you know that 47 year-olds get paid more than 18 year-olds? Why? How dare they! Outrageous I say! Of course there are plenty of legit reasons why, job selection, experience, etc...
If an employer could truly get away with paying $0.88 to a woman instead of $1.00 to a man for the same job all men would be out of work tommorow.
I suggest reading how to lie with statistics. A great intro into reading through the constant BS the media pushes.
That said, there are plenty of discussions to have around pay issues, including why teachers and home health aides get paid so little, how to compensate for the crucial work stay at home moms do, why more girls aren't getting into engineering, etc... Difficult issues.
Why would you care if something is increasing so low. Its like from 0.0000001 to 0.001 it increased by 10,000% sounds like a huge increase but its not. Its propaganda. How to lie with statistics
Ugh. It is really sad when Vox comes in to present the more rational argument (their top article today is that you shouldn't watch The Interview because that would helps NK).
Still, the USA Today was pretty slimy right there. Clearly someone at the USA Today bought the book How to Lie with Statistics.
There is a great book a professor of mine asked us to read for a statistics class. The title was "How to lie with statistics". I highly recommend it if you can find it. Basically, it shows you how to spin numbers to prove whatever you want.
Woohoo, I found it on amazon
The apparent change of those who think it is justified is actually less than the margin of error of the poll. The change in those who think it's politically motivated is just over the margin of error.
Biggest change is among Republicans, who previously thought Trump should cooperate, but now don't.
Also they only spoke with 1,101/235M+ Americans of voting age
How to Lie with Statistics https://www.amazon.com/dp/0393310728/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_apa_i_Kp38Ab9T1YZET
Good read.
You're right; I was probably a bit too smarmy. Statistics really aren't a natural thing for a person to "intuit" about. How To Lie With Statistics was my first stats book in college, and I think it was a brilliant decision by whomever designed the curriculum.
> I can sit here and convince a lot of people that Black, Hispanic, Asian, or White people have sick twisted cultures. If I decontextualize those statistics intentionally my portrayal of the group is bordering on dishonesty.
In case anyone doubts you, here is a book that you'll find in many poli-sci classrooms: http://www.amazon.com/How-Lie-Statistics-Darrell-Huff/dp/0393310728
Note: The text at the bottom of the cover is a joke.
http://www.amazon.com/How-Lie-Statistics-Darrell-Huff/dp/0393310728
yes indeed
Always loved the book How to lie with statistics,. Found it from Bill Gates top 10 must read list, loved it.
Complexity should give it a try!
(I don't think its Nahaz fault, COL playing terrible. I do hate the "stats dont lie" shit he does though.)
You might find this an interesting read.
_____
Also, I don't think the state or federal governments will care about 0.9% and 0.005% of homes, but if sea-level rise starts negatively affecting NAS Oceana or the Norfolk ship yards, they certainly will take notice.
It's because we live in a democratic society, where unfortunately, the same people who believe all pit bulls are vicious dogs, a blink away from ripping your throat off, are the same ones who will vote to one day ban pit bulls based on false evidence. Furthermore, you should never, ever make conclusions based on bad data. That just seems like common sense to me.
In the past year, pressure cookers have been the single greatest direct terrorist threat to Boston. This is a true statement. It is also useless data. Making any judgements based around it is a waste of time, and really boggles the minds of people who actually know it's useless data.
Remember, statistics can be manipulated to show anything you want. A great book that my stats teacher had us all read: http://www.amazon.com/How-Lie-Statistics-Darrell-Huff/dp/0393310728
How To Lie With Statistics
Its the process that numbers were calculated with that you should also be concerned with. Mailing address isnt a good proxy for 'foreign' as many commenters are pointing out.
I could do a bull shit study on shit data and feed you some numbers, but hopefully you would be sceptical about it!
Also check out this book How to Lie with Statistics for a decent explanation.
The way /r/GoodMerlinpeen/ has presented this statistics is taken out of an example from this book
I hope you're sincerely interested, because I am going to answer like you are :)
Each bracket has no relation to the next one. Drawing a line implies that there is a functional relationship between family income and SAT score. There IS a trend, but this is not the proper way to imply a trend. This implies something else at hand, like an equation or something.
I know I am not phrasing this well.
But even a bar graph would make the data look better.
Another thing to note: look at the axes! The y-axis starts at 400 and ends at 600. The altered axis makes the data seem more extreme. 200 points difference IS a large difference in SAT scores, but the way they represented it made it seem even larger.
If you are genuinely interested, there is an amazing book called "How to Lie With Statistics", which you can buy on Amazon that teaches you about all the naughty things that people do to manipulate their graphs to look better! Or you can download this powerpoint which goes over how to display data badly, haha!
Heh. Funny.
It's sure easy to confirm one's bias when you make stuff up.
https://www.amazon.com/How-Lie-Statistics-Darrell-Huff-dp-0393310728/dp/0393310728/ref=mt_paperback?_encoding=UTF8&me=&qid=1554384269
Also, maybe even more significantly:
https://www.amazon.com/Innumeracy-Mathematical-Illiteracy-Its-Consequences-dp-0809058405/dp/0809058405/ref=mt_paperback?_encoding=UTF8&me=&qid=1554384368
My point is that if you use one standard to measure one thing, and a different standard to measure another thing. Juxtaposing them and saying: "this this is more than that thing", then you're going to make what appears to be a convincing argument, but ultimately it means nothing.
One of the years in the next 3, US Oil is going to have a 150 Billion dollar Gain because some of that 67 billion dollar loss was infrastructure maintenance and will produce huge returns later. You teslamotors fanboys aren't going to upvote that post when it rolls around, showing how US oil is still 3 or 4 orders of magnitude more capable of producing returns on investment than Tesla EVER will.
There are lean years, and there are growth years for big oil. I can make the same argument, having a kid with a Popsicle stand laugh at a bunch of contractors building a skyscraper and shouting: "My popsicle stand made more money this year than you". It's meaningless. It ignores the most important thing which is 5 year moving average of return on investment and investing for future gains. This whole article made me stupider by reading it.
The book you need to read is: https://www.amazon.com/How-Lie-Statistics-Darrell-Huff/dp/0393310728
You should the read the book, How to Lie with Statistics. It is a common practice to mess with graphics to make a point.
no one, there is a good book on how to figure out what is actually true (how to lie with statistics), it is great and really lets you know something.
https://www.amazon.ca/How-Lie-Statistics-Darrell-Huff/dp/0393310728
In the first article you linked:
> “We have universal health coverage - you don’t pay to see your doctor or go to the hospital. We have a high degree of social security. You are entitled to benefits if you lose your job, if you get sick, if you are disabled. We have one year of maternity leave, we have one subsidised early childhood education and care and we ensure care for our elderly if they cannot manage on their own,” he said.
>
> “We also have a strong and fee educational system. Students in institutions for higher education and university do not pay for their education, on the contrary they receive educational grants for studying,” he added.
Those are the exact things Bernie wants, and the majority of Americans want. If that's socialism, then call me a socialist. Bernie wants the programs that have been working there to be used here as well. Did he said he wants to copy everything no. That's not what a model is.
The term Bernie Bro is sexist considering most of his supporters were women. To title your article with the term is just bad journalism and doesn't set the right tone for making any type of point.
Your second article is from by Jeffrey Dorfman who has been found to stretch the truth.
The article Jeffrey wrote is a textbook example of how to lie with statistics. His hole premise comes from this [Neoliberal think tank](The Fraser Institute, a Vancouver-based, pro-free market). AKA let's come up with a conservative study that fits our narrative.
The second article is by William O'Keefe a known Big Oil lobbyist so it's no surprise he's writing hit pieces on Bernie and Socialism. He want's that Venezuelan oil that the new president is giving to all his supporters.
How can you support this argument
> “The message from groups like Occupy Wall Street has been that inequality is up and that capitalism is failing us. A more correct and nuanced message is this: Although significant economic problems remain, we have been living in equalizing times for the world — a change that has been largely for the good. That may not make for convincing sloganeering, but it’s the truth.”
When the income inequality of not only the top 1% but the top .01% and above is at a sickening and inhumane rate.
Did you seriously link to a John Stossel video? He is known for only giving one side of an argument. Listen, I don't want to be a socialist country either. But I do want certain socialist programs enacted, Medicare 4 All and Free college tuition through a marginal tax rate on the top earners in this country. Putting these two items in place does not turn us into Venezuela overnight, nor will it mean we'll be socialist in less than 100 years. To push the false narrative that that is the direction the left wants to go in is false and is again, really bad journalism. You should be ashamed for using that video to support your argument.
Edit: words
Looks like someone read How to Lie with Statistics: http://www.amazon.com/How-Lie-Statistics-Darrell-Huff/dp/0393310728
Lol are you seriously just going to respond with another cherry-picked point?
How about the part of the post actually describing the reasoning for skewed statistics? Honestly you could benefit from this book if you think an unsourced offhand comment that "Statistically, random vague statement " is considered "factual evidence".
The infographic, frame by frame
I'm a data analyst by profession, and this book would help anyone understand what is going on here.
Not because mormons are all liars, far from it, they are some of the most honest people, but the newsroom likes to juggle statistics. Every piece of information individually is true, but when placed next to each other they build a picture that is deceptive.
Frame 1: Sacrament meeting attendance "100%"
This is straight out deceptive
The Numerator here is "Active mormons" and the Denominator here is "Active Mormons". Now my wife is an active mormon, and she misses every once in a while so on top of measuring the same number on the top and on the bottom, they've also rounded up.
Frame 2: 1.3 million worship services: Straight forward, take the number of chapels in service x the number of weeks in the year. Somehow I think it will still fall short of 1.3 million. Let's check: 21,335 church units x 52 = 1,109,420. I'm not sure how they get 1.3 million, but it's > 1 million Close enough.
Members believe
They do believe in the bible as well as the book of Mormon, and Christ is mentioned that frequently, which is fascinating because 2/3's of the book occurs before Jesus is born. In fact, Mary is given by name hundreds of years before she was born, and John the baptist's exact phrases are quoted hundreds of years this should give one pause.
9 out of 10 members pray daily This is taken from active temple-recommend holders, or the most faithful of the members, certainly out of that "regular attendence" number above, these people are probably only half. Denominator units matter.
4th largest church here is where the deception begins. Because those "member" numbers above were only for active people, but to get the "Largest in the U.S." status they claim here, they include anyone who was ever a member. i.e. babies who never went to church, individuals who died until they are 110 years old, people who have resigned from the church. census records indicate that only 5 million members are active
According to the study
Mormon's placed 3rd, which is impressive, right after atheists and agnostics. Interesting tidbit
77% of members attend weekly again, one must ignore the 2/3rd of members who no longer self-identify as members, who were included in the 4th largest calculation. Members who self identify attend church more regularly. Imagine if catholics could remove from their denominator everyone who doesn't attend regularly from their attendance calculations!
73% listed marriage
Again, we're looking at the top of the top members. These members hold recommends and were probably already married. We're not asking kids if they are going to get married, we're asking already married people if marriage was a top goal. The idea that 27% of them do not have it as a goal should be telling.
96% donate These donations are required to be counted as an active member. They don't donate free-willing, they give money because it is required, like a tax, for membership.
80% donate to non-religious causes The Boy Scouts of America is closely tied (most would say owned) to the LDS church. Most of the "Non-religious" donations go to the Boy Scouts, which are allowed to use the church buildings for fundraisers, and to request funds twice a year in church. This year, my local authority (The Bishop) gave a talk in Sunday about the importance in donating to the friends of scouting program.
70% participate in religious volunteering again, most active members, but yes, they are excellent at volunteering. I have to wonder if they include volunteering at church run facilities (Such as the welfare farms) in this number.
Fasting this is true that they fast once a month, and donate the value of two meals (Usually much more) to the church (not to any charity, to the church). The church then puts this money into an interest bearing account for 3 years, and finally allows it to be spent at the end of those three years, when a bishop makes a request. This money is used for things such as reformation of gays at private company camps. Interest spun off the money is used in for profit ventures such as the mall. Most members do no know how their fast offering money is used.
More members live outside the U.S.
It was just discovered that almost 1 million members in Brazille do not exist. I would suggest that this is using global numbers including inactives to get this total, but if we are to use the "Active membership" numbers from above, we'd find that most members are not only in the U.S., but in Utah.
I don't know where they get the 28,000 congregation number, as I took my 21,000 congregation number directly from the 2012 conference report. Unless we built 7,000 ward houses in the last few months, I am suspicious of this number.
Total Church Membership as mentioned before, this includes anyone who was ever baptized whether they left, died until 110, etc. This is not the denominator for most the statistics on this infographic.
185 countries this is an accurate number by everything I could find.
This should be required reading.
But yeah, it's a little freaky how many people simply replace theology with science to form arguments about things they don't actually comprehend. That's not disparage science or scientists in general. But there's a lot of ignorant people who believe things not because they heard what scientists said and went and read about their work and examined what they did and tried to actually understand what was found, but because "science said so." Sometimes that can be abused... see the anti-vax movement.
Ha, you're funny. Let's go over these.
Credit Rating: I can argue this was inevitable from the way things were going when Obama assumed office. You may argue it was not. This is not something I feel can be argued effectively.
Unemployment If you can look at that graph and tell me you still think it doesn't look better under Obama, I will call you a liar.
Gas was artificially low for a tiny period of time. A few months before that is was well over four dollars a gallon.
Debt I will agree has gone out of control and needs to be reigned in. Unfortunately a vast bulk of this is medicare and no one will touch that.
For the wars I'd rather see troop deployment numbers than number of wars.
Budget is congress. There is no argument for this. The creator of this graph was an idiot for including it.
By the way, statistics lie very easily. Read a book
This book was the optional reading for my first year stats class. Should have been required.
How to Lie with Statistics
https://www.amazon.com/How-Lie-Statistics-Darrell-Huff/dp/0393310728
Not magic.
I would definitely say that the Bible is the most Influential book ever written, though humanity would have been a lot better off it it weren't.
Insofar as the most valuable, my vote would go to Principia Mathematica. Although its readership was limited, it was the magnum opus of the greatest scientist who ever lived (Newton was also a colossal dick, but the value and brilliance of his scientific discoveries is unquestionable). With that book, Newton irrevocably took physical science out of the hands of the philosophers and into the hands of the true scientists. It heralded the first real scientific revolution. Newton showed us that we CAN understand the Universe, that mysterious things like gravity and light and the motions of the planets DO have explanations which make sense. And, with the exception of extreme circumstances where one must consider the effects described by Einstein's theories of Relativity, Newton's laws still apply to everything we do today.
One book which should have been on the list is, "How to Lie with Statistics." That one ought to be required reading for every single human.
Relevant book.
Was written in 1954 and still shockingly relevant.
Because many people believe that you can lie with statistics...a guy even wrote a book on how to do it.
Hey, here it is...
https://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/0393310728/ref=mp_s_a_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1469297515&sr=8-1&pi=SY200_QL40&keywords=how+to+lie+with+statistics&dpPl=1&dpID=51zFExbOw9L&ref=plSrch
here's a book to read.
How to lie with statistics.
>"The secret language of statistics, so appealing in a fact-minded culture, is employed to sensationalize, inflate, confuse, and oversimplify," warns Huff.
Oh man. I'm saving a copy of that graph. That's How to Lie with Statistics 101.
Yup. These guys aren't real Christians. This is their real bible
There are lies, damned lies, and statistics.
How to Lie with Statistics https://www.amazon.com/dp/0393310728/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_apa_-HZ.BbXA1BV68
One of my favorite books is How to Lie with Statistics. I think you would like it: https://www.amazon.com/How-Lie-Statistics-Darrell-Huff/dp/0393310728
https://www.amazon.com/How-Lie-Statistics-Darrell-Huff/dp/0393310728
I think you have the right strategy with "something for the grandkids." But there is more you can do.
Fallacies and Pitfalls of Language is best posed as a "Hey, you want to know how to catch these lying bastards? Here's how." If he's at all cantankerous, this is the ideal book to fuel that. Once the logical fallacies he confronts daily have labels, it's easier to dispense with them. It's a much more engaging and practical approach than an introduction to formal logic or going for Greek philosophy.
It's an easy work to build on. How to Lie with Statistics is in the same vein if he really likes the format and wants more. If he only digs it, I'd start him on something like Sagan's "Demon-Haunted World" which takes a skeptical, and critical approach to demons, aliens, angels, psychics, and that sort of thing. It's engaging, hopeful, and interesting, and forces us to confront the silliness pandered on the History channel these days.
https://www.amazon.com/How-Lie-Statistics-Darrell-Huff/dp/0393310728
It depends on what you're using the data for. Both might seem to measure the same thing, but they don't. I went with a "per capita spending" as it points to consumer spending patterns. Plus, I'd guess that the data is much easier to find than something like "drinks consumed per year." Also, since the OP discusses sales I felt it "relevant" in this context. You're looking at it from a "alcohol consumed" standpoint, my method would look at it from a "money spent on alcohol" standpoint. Both are equally valuable and equally useless - depending on how you use the data. Since I'm a data nerd, I'll share my take on it and try to break it down further.
Let's say you go by per capita consumption (what you're describing). With that data, your goal might be to see how many drinks the average American consumes. That data might be valuable for someone in health services - possibly to suggest physical/mental health concerns regarding alcohol consumption. IE, has the rate of alcoholism increased and in what age group (age, socio-economic). Personally, I think it'd be a far more interesting data-set to look at, as the gap between drinks consumed by casual drinkers and alcoholics would probably be quite large. For instance: low cost, high alcohol content products like Steel Reserve, Wild Rose, and Mad Dog 20/20 - ie your homeless/alcoholic products - and plastic bottle liquor would be more heavily weighted while $200 bottles of wine would be considered only a few drinks. Meaning, $15 of MD 20/20 would be more "per capita consumption" than a $200 bottle of wine. Good data for those in health.
If you go by sales per capita, you're moreso looking at something that is valuable from a capitalist/marketing perspective. Basically, you're trying to answer what percentage of income the average American spends on alcohol. It'd be more valuable for businesses trying to determine pricing strategies. Cheap beers/bum wines/plastic bottle liquors would be less impactful as they're cheap. On the other hand, quality wines, craft beers, and other "luxury" wines would be more telling of your more middle-class purchases. I can see this being valuable for businesses determining which markets to target, legislators trying to add alcohol taxes, or even grocery stores determining whether or not to get their liquor sales license.
That's a perfect example of why I love data and the discussion of "how to lie with statistics".. I don't have enough familiarity with the trends on this topic so I don't want to make any erroneous assumptions, but let's talk hypothetically. Let's assume alcohol sales are on the rise, drinks consumed per capita is stagnant, and drunk driving deaths are falling. As I said, I don't want to make assumptions here, so assume that's all hypothetical. An organization like MADD (Mothers Against Drunk Driving) might site sales increases as "evidence that drinking is a problem and on the rise." Is it actually or is it just using a single metric that contradicts more valuable/specific information? In that scenario, to me it'd reveal that consumers are shifting purchasing habits to middle-priced alcohol and getting less drunk. Once again, I am not promoting a political narrative or accusing them of doing that. I just chose a random acronym people are familiar with.
On the other side of the hypothetical, let's assume alcohol sales are falling, but per capita consumption is significantly rising. Legislators might use sales figures to argue that alcoholism isn't as big of a concern anymore and thus we should cut treatment spending - when in actuality per capita consumption up and the reason sales are down is due to a recession. Once again, great example of lying with statistics.
> The new index, proposed by the Rajan committee, is based on averages of ten sub-components
So an IIT and MIT graduate came up with new index to rank states where 1/6 of the humanity resides with varied demographics and index he comes up with is average of 10 unrelated sub-components. Seriously, Raghuram. You are effing RBI governor. I hope you know more mathematics then grade 3 kids.
I don't even need to go out of my way to see the flaw in his index. Just ask any graduate student who has published a paper in peer reviewed conference/journal.
ps -
http://www.amazon.com/How-Lie-Statistics-Darrell-Huff/dp/0393310728
I'll just leave it here if anyone is interested. It's humours,informative, very accessible light read on how statistics is misused by reporters and investigators to further their own agenda.
So then the video is meaningless. Great.
My statistics 101 course started with the book "How to Lie with Statistics". This would be an excellent case study.
https://www.amazon.ca/How-Lie-Statistics-Darrell-Huff/dp/0393310728
some books never get old. a must read for everyone.
So... you showed "Democratic control of the Senate" when unemployment was going up, but you showed "Republican control of the House" when it's coming down?
Here's a book you'd like:
http://www.amazon.com/How-Lie-Statistics-Darrell-Huff/dp/0393310728
517 missions raising hundreds of millions of dollars. This equates to close to 2 million dollars per mission at most. This article is slightly disingenuous in that it only gives proportions and no real numbers, i.e. "Two-thirds of the people coming to these missions hoped to a find a doctor to treat them, while the other third lay dying without receiving appropriate care." So without any substantial figures, people here are up in arms without any baseline knowledge of the real numbers.
For those interested, you should read a book called How to Lie with Statistics.
Have you read How to Lie with Statistics?
I had no idea think tanks were meant to do this: https://www.amazon.com/How-Lie-Statistics-Darrell-Huff/dp/0393310728
Bad Science by Ben Goldacre, Demon Haunted World by Carl Sagan for general science.
Stuff by James Randi, Michael Shermer for general stuff about new age crap.
The Panic Virus by Seth Mnookin and Deadly Choices by Paul Offit on the Anti-Vaccination movement.
Damned Lies and Statistics by Joel Best and How to Lie with Statistics by Darrell Huff (Also see How to Lie with Maps by Mark Monomonier for a similar subject) for questioning stats and graphics used in the news.
Is there anything specifically you're interested in?
Books:
---
Podcasts:
The podcast so far has talked about: The English Civil War, The American Revolution, The French Revolution, The Haitian Revolution (the first successful slave-led revolution), The Venezuelan Revolution (and basically all of Northwest South America), The French Revolution of 1830, and they're now on The Revolutions of 1848.
These revolutions as you listen to them end up having common themes and patterns, and their political ideas shaped modern political discourse, such that what we now consider the 'acceptable bounds' of political discourse was largely determined by these earlier revolutions.
Based on your comment, the first thing you should probably do is try and get some cheap textbooks on statistics and probability and work through them. The particular textbook isn't terribly important as the level of statistics you're looking for hasn't changed much over the past 50 years. A good book on formal logic will probably also help as it can help you learn to see if a conclusion is warranted on the premises (hint: it's very rare, even in academia).
If you're not willing to take that plunge with a full textbook, How To Lie With Statistics (https://www.amazon.com/How-Lie-Statistics-Darrell-Huff/dp/0393310728) is probably the most popular statistics book in existence and is aimed at a layperson. There's also communities who are have a peculiar dedication to logic and have blogs everywhere.
When it comes to "reading data" it's largely numbers. So if you can get used to doing some mental arithmetic or drawing some quick graphs, you'll go far in "reading" the numbers. For the most part it's just numbers though. If you're trying to really dig into a paper what you want to look for are odd numbers that the authors aren't mentioning or trends that would seem to contradict the authors hypothesis or suggest alternatives. Usually, if there's a mistake or something to be learned, it's going to be buried in the text in a way that's harder to spot.
The big thing to learn in poking holes through a paper is to just be a good scientist. Think of alternative hypothesis, actually read the tables and methodologies (most academics actually don't) and be very skeptical. Pay very close attention to definitions and anything they suggest might have been an anomaly or pre-processed. If you've done any good science work or watched people, you can also read between the lines a bit (if there's 6 subjects in a study, it's probably just people in a research group, which means it's almost certainly a non-representative sample, for example).
I completely agree that taking away one device does not solve a problem. I'd also argue that "solving" depression is a complex issue that won't be as immediately enforceable as a gun policy.
So, why not both?
Surely there's some good reason for a Republican to back the bill, no?
ps, you might really enjoy reading "How to Lie with Statistics" (non affiliate link).
How to lie with statistics
An oldie but a goodie How to Lie With Stastics
All it takes:
Agenda + http://www.amazon.com/How-Lie-Statistics-Darrell-Huff/dp/0393310728/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1458679454&sr=8-1&keywords=how+to+lie+with+statistics
Even ignoring maliciousness, which is certainly an element of underhanded politics, it's just very easy to do accidentally; or to not realise it's being done to you. How to Lie with Statistics is basically a collection of (authentic) examples of accidental and deliberate deceit.
https://www.amazon.ca/How-Lie-Statistics-Darrell-Huff/dp/0393310728
Which is why you ought to read this book. It's a classic, but that doesn't stop people from practically using it as an operating manual.
This sounds exactly like something that would be in How to Lie with Statistics.
There's a whole book about that. How to Lie with Statistics.
Just as an aside, you should read How to Lie with Statistics.
I need to re-read it. It never hurts to learn how to spot bullshit statistics.
;)
Statistics are really good for lying or backing up points you want to make.
amazon link
Have you ever read the book, How To Lie With Statistics? Really, the only part of college statistics that I have retained is how to lie with numbers, while still being technically mathematically correct. You should step up your lie game. Practice makes perfect! https://www.amazon.com/How-Lie-Statistics-Darrell-Huff/dp/0393310728/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1526650890&sr=8-1&keywords=how+to+lie
Fifty years later, the same book is written again...
Darrell Huff wrote How to Lie with Statistics in 1954. This book doesn't add much.
I read through your entire response before I replied. But I replied as though I was replying as I read it (does that make sense?) So you may think I am poking you by saying the same thing over and over again; its not meant to poking, but reinforcing.
> Where else would my mileage reimbursement come from though?
To understand this you have to also understand the following:
My commentary is in italics
> Service Charges: A compulsory charge for service (the delivery fee), for example, 15 percent of the bill, is not a tip. Such charges are part of the employer's gross receipts. Sums distributed to employees from service charges cannot be counted as tips received, but may be used to satisfy the employer's minimum wage and overtime obligations under the FLSA. If an employee receives tips in addition to the compulsory service charge, those tips may be considered in determining whether the employee is a tipped employee and in the application of the tip credit.
Ok, this is where you may get confused, I know I did until a real attorney, multiple ones, explained this to me.
> Sums distributed to employees from service charges cannot be counted as tips received, but may be used to satisfy the employer's minimum wage and overtime obligations under the FLSA.
Now remember... from... 29 CFR 778.217 - Reimbursement for expenses.
> (a)General rule. Where an employee incurs expenses on his employer's behalf or where he is required to expend sums solely by reason of action taken for the convenience of his employer, section 7(e)(2) is applicable to reimbursement for such expenses. Payments made by the employer to cover such expenses are not included in the employee's regular rate (if the amount of the reimbursement reasonably approximates the expenses incurred). Such payment is not compensation for services rendered by the employees during any hours worked in the workweek.
What the statute refers to as "regular rate" is the same as saying "the employer's minimum wage and overtime obligations"
If the employer gives you any portion of the delivery fee, then that portion is considered part of your "regular rate" or "wage".
If your employer gives you a portion of the delivery fee, say $1.25 per delivery, then that amount is part of your wage, not reimbursement for expenses.
> I think I would have noticed if I didn't receive the "($1.25*#deliveries)" part of my take home pay.
I would like you to take a look again at 29 CFR 778.217 - Reimbursement for expenses.. The only time the word "pay" is used is here in section (d) and it is referring to the "regular rate of pay" which means "wages".
> So I received $1.25 per delivery but it didn't come from the delivery fee?
That is correct, usually.
> Why wouldn't it come from the delivery fee?
Because if it came from the delivery fee than it would be part of your wages, not a reimbursement for expenses.
> Where did it come from? Explain that to me.
It came from the employer's gross receipts. Already explained.
I know where you're going to go next. "But the delivery fee is part of the gross receipts, so I did receive part of the delivery fee!! Ha, got you!"
No, you did not get me. Once the delivery fee is part of the gross receipts it stops being a delivery fee. I know that does not make sense, but in the eyes of the law it does.
> Off topic but that is people making mistakes or lying. Math can be done incorrectly and misconstrued but it can not lie.
How to Lie with Statistics. One of the required reading when I had to take Statistics.
> My point here is that it is easy to check the numbers every night to see if you're getting screwed.
Yes, it is easy. But if you're inputting your mileage reimbursement as a portion of your wage, then you're calculating incorrectly.
> Ok, so we agree they legally owe drivers money for driving.
Maybe, it depends on the specific facts. In most cases, employees driving for any of the Pig 3, or their franchises, the employer will owe the employee mileage reimbursement. Whether they do or do not is an entirely different conversation.
>> Can you point to any verbiage that tells you how much of the delivery fee you receive? You cannot.
(3) The actual or reasonably approximate amount expended by an employee, who is traveling “over the road” on his employer's business, for transportation (whether by private car or common carrier) and living expenses away from home, other travel expenses, such as taxicab fares, incurred while traveling on the employer's business.
> It would be impossible for the law to state exact amount because of to many variables.
No, it would not. No where in 29 CFR 778.217 - Reimbursement for expenses does it say you receive a portion of the delivery fee. Do you see the words "delivery fee" in that statute?
> I seem to recall a piece of paper the drivers have to sign at the end of their shift that states what was claimed and mileage paid. I know Jimmy Johns does this and they have their mileage rate in the employee handbook.
Yes, I have seen similar types of notices. These are simply an attempt by the employer to cover their asses. They have no importance to this discussion. I understand that people think they are important, but they are not.
The "employee handbook" and what it says is meaningless if the terms violate the law. An "employee handbook" is not an employment contract.
> I suppose your right that I don't know where it comes from exactly but it doesn't make sense to receive exactly $1.25 a delivery and it not come from the delivery charge.
I know. It makes things easier, that's what the employer wants. The employer wants you to become complacent and accepting that everything they do is done in the correct manner. Your employer (in the form of management, any level) can say a lot of things; just because they say something does not mean it is true, legal, or fact. Most managers don't know shit beyond how to do the paperwork they were trained to do, they are not lawyers, they do not receive training on minimum wage laws. We, employees, have to educate ourselves so we can protect ourselves.
> I don't like being wrong as much as the next guy and I am usually a stubborn person but I am genuinely curious where you think the reimbursement comes from.
I know reimbursement comes from the employer's gross receipts
> The only thing I can think of is that is the strictest technical sense the store reimburses out of their "pocket" and is then themselves reimbursed by the delivery charge.
Nope. In the strictest technical sense the store reimburses the employees for their expenses out of the employer's gross receipts. The delivery fee is just a small part of the gross receipts.
Just for fun... let's take a look at what amounts make up the employer's gross receipts.
Would you say that you receive the sales tax as reimbursement? No, you would not.
Would you say that the 2 liter of Pepsi that was delivered was part of the reimbursement? No, you would not.
If you've gotten this far: Congratulations, you've learned something today!! Hopefully.
Now that I've typed all this out, I am going to really piss you off... I know delivery drivers that actually do receive a portion of the delivery fee; they are rare. They are usually not employees though, they are usually independent contractors and that's a whole other conversation.
> The easiest people to scam are those that think they are too smart to be scammed.
Heh yeah, I like to call it "advanced stupid". This is a whole nother ball game I like to rag on when I'm knee deep in university people. For as much as I go on like a pedantic scientist twat, those guys can drive me nuts.
>The easiest people to subjugate are those that fear losing what they might have,
Yuuup. And what better way to do that than keep people dumb and dependent and take away their self sufficiency?
Really depends on our dictator tactics--we can exploit people in many styles. But one example that comes to mind for me: so long as the public doesn't know statistics for shit, it's proven we can use all the old school advertising lies and pump them for money. It gets a little more grave when we apply those tactics to political spin. Right, left, middle, you name it.
http://www.amazon.com/How-Lie-Statistics-Darrell-Huff/dp/0393310728
Having a link to statistics doesn't make the point valid. Try applying critical thinking to it and it doesn't really hold up.
> Not significantly (8% in 2000 vs 7.4% in 2010) but it gives more context than just "there are more in 2010" in my opinion
If you torture the statistics enough, they'll generally confess to whatever you want them to. There's even an entire book on this sort of thing. (To be fair, the book's intent isn't so much to teach you how to do it, but more to teach you how to spot it and make you think about such things when reading other people's work. That said, reading it would probably help you do it better if that was your goal.)
That said, this particular example is a relatively mild one (and may even be accidental rather than intentional) -- there are much, much worse abuses out there.
How to lie with statistics.
https://www.amazon.com/How-Lie-Statistics-Darrell-Huff/dp/0393310728
There's tons of information out there that can be easily googled, so I contest your statement about hearing sides of the story because the science is not hard to find. The problem, as I see it, is that the general population (which sounds like it includes you, no insult intended) does not have the critical analysis skills that help one to distinguish good sources from bad and where representations of data are manipulative. Those who have been fortunate enough to go to excellent universities have learned this skill, and some people are lucky enough to develop it on their own. So the more you develop your critical analysis skills, the more you'll be able to distinguish good information from bad. (And the more quickly you will be able to see through supposedly scientific articles, and the more quickly you will realize how bad at reporting scientific information the media is). I reiterate my suggestion to begin with "How to Lie With Statistics". It's hilarious, a quick read, and will truly enlighten you - it's a fantastic starting point. Beyond that, there are numerous books that teach critical thinking and writing. The more you develop those skills, the more easily you can assess the information coming your way. It's unfortunate that it's hard to assess information, but science especially is not easy, and people who want to manipulate it to fit their arguments are skilled at making their representations seem accurate. A healthy dose of skepticism is your friend in this respect.
Svarið við spurningunni er já, en það sannar bara að vinstri endinn á Laffer kúrvunni er í núlli og segir ekkert um restina.
Og hvað í ósköpunum á þessi mynd að sýna? Þetta er beint upp úr How to Lie With Statistics (skalinn byrjar ekki í núlli, mismunandi prósentur á 2 ásum, ómögulegt að vita hvað er hvað).
http://www.amazon.ca/How-To-Lie-With-Statistics/dp/0393310728
http://www.horace.org/blog/wp-content/uploads/2012/05/How-to-Lie-With-Statistics-1954-Huff.pdf
If we’re going for quirky one off books thenhow to lie with statistics is a great one.
Looks like they're following this book pretty well so far.
How to Lie with Statistics
Statistics never lie - or do they?
> It's all a little like the tale of the roadside merchant who was asked to explain how he could sell rabbit sandwiches so cheap. 'Well,' he said, 'I have to put in some horse meat too. But I mix 'em fifty-fifty: one horse, one rabbit.'
>
How to Lie with Statistics by by Darrell Huff
http://www.amazon.com/How-Lie-Statistics-Darrell-Huff/dp/0393310728
I used to feel that way too. Depending on your preceptor, it might feel like a fun discussion or like they're just tearing you apart. I think what changed for me was when I actually started to understand statistics on a deeper level and also when I started precepting myself and had to lead journal clubs.
It can be an exercise in misery if your article is well done or you're not into the subject matter. But when you realize how flimsy a lot of "Bible truths" in medicine are - studies choose their methods and statistical tests poorly, conflicts of interest, and especially intentionally-withheld negative studies - it gets more interesting. There's just something satisfying about ripping apart a bad piece of primary lit.
Here's an exercise: pick your favorite pharmacotherapy dogma from school or rotations, then dig into it and see what the evidence base really is. You may be surprised how little it takes to become accepted as a cornerstone of medicine.
It's still early in your year, so likely you have more journal clubs ahead of you. Do yourself a favor and drop $7.50 on How to Lie with Statistics. For less than a meal out, you'll at least be more prepared to approach the literature.
After reading the link to [sciencedaily] (http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2011/11/111130095251.htm) by Dr. Yang Wang, I smelled red herring. The research makes little sense in terms of 1) research sample size (only 28 adults), 2) tasks selection (in this case, why does it have to be violent games, not brainy games like Echo Chrome or Trine or Portal?), and 3) the duration of the test itself and post-mortem followups. For example, if someone is to do a research on marathon running/training, you'd need to have the sample group doing the exercise/training for at least 3-4 months+ before you can confidently suggest any significant "short-term" effects; and 1-2 years+ before any real long-term effects are shown. Besides, long-living creatures like humans generally require more time for biological reaction to take full effect because cell regeneration and metabolism rates are different from amoebas.
Let's examine the marathon running hypothesis again - the week after your training begun, you've got to feel sore! Worst is that the research ONLY picked people who don't usually exercise. So, if I were to conclude from one week of resting after one week of marathon training, I would call it "mentally draining, physically damaging, and can lead to outbreak of heart problems and even fatal." See the problem here? Not to mention - how do you get from "the cognitive control is regained after gaming stopped" to "long-term effect on cognitive control?" Am I reading gibberish or am I crazy? In addition, the age selection is also very problematic - 19 year-old brains are not fully matured, so that can complicate things. The best is to use a sample size of the same age group - 25 exact, or older groups -30~40.
Check out [this article] (http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-15720178) and its [link 1] (http://www.nature.com/tp/journal/v1/n11/full/tp201153a.html) and [link 2] (http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/health/4682801.stm) and see what you think. Here's an extract from the "Discussion" part of the research paper (link 1):
>Individuals with higher ventral striatum volume might experience video gaming as more rewarding in the first place. This in turn could facilitate skill acquisition and lead to further reward resulting from playing.
And lastly, the golden rule of statistics - [correlation doesn't imply causation] (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Correlation_does_not_imply_causation) (It's importantly enough to have its own wiki page).
If you are interested in how statistics can be altered to support shrewd ideas, there's [this book.] (http://www.amazon.com/How-Lie-Statistics-Darrell-Huff/dp/0393310728)
As for my personal opinion, I'd have to agree with some researchers - the problem is too complex with too many variables. It'd be hard to determine exactly what effect long-term gaming has on our brains (of what types of games played). Until we have a sample size of 1,000+ from around the world, and doing a long term study with 30 yrs+ monitoring with strict rules/conditions, we can never be sure. It's possible, we've done similar research for the effect of exercise on the elderly before, we can do it again on other theories (i.e. can gaming help/prevent Parkinson's?).
Errbody ought to read this. You can buy it, or a PDF is available online.
https://www.amazon.com/How-Lie-Statistics-Darrell-Huff/dp/0393310728
They don't?
VS maxes were crap at AI before the max pass. I used em, I had both cosmos and blue shifts, etc; they really weren't good. The max pass made them a bunch better.
If the statistics they're using indicate that they were good before the big max pass, they're using problematic statistics or statistics with an explanation other than "X is OP", because the VS maxes objectively weren't good, by the numbers or by play experience.
It's also worth noting that we were only given two KD ratio numbers; if pre-max pass VS maxes had a high KDR, it could easily have been because they were never pulled for AI duty, only AA, even moreso than the TR and NC maxes were; the result of that would be an inflated KDR because burster maxes tend to be secure and safe and would get a lot of kills without really being in danger ever, back then. They could have a dramatically higher KDR than the others via that, but that doesn't mean that they were OP in all roles; it meant no one used them on that faction except for the one very high return role, which inflated their overall performance. Presumably if that were the case it would show by being able to filter performance by weapon.
There's a reason the saying is "lies, damn lies, and statistics". Giving partial statistics, without any context or crosstabs, really makes me feel very suspect about the validity and usefulness of the argument being made. Darrell Huff's book is relevant there... http://www.amazon.com/How-Lie-Statistics-Darrell-Huff/dp/0393310728
Aha! You read it too!
It's important to understand that lying with statistics is so prevalent that the primer on how to learn statistics is called "How To Lie With Statistics", so I'd be careful about seeing the framing of the question, sample size, sample randomness and polling method before taking anything statistical with more than a grain of salt.
I'm an engineer and I've wasted quite a bit of my company's money (in the past, not this company) on using failure modes analysis with garbage input values.
Edit: Book link
> Statistics are oppression.
https://www.amazon.com/How-Lie-Statistics-Darrell-Huff/dp/0393310728
Any idiot can regurgitate statistics.
Highly recommend it, especially with what's going with the election.
https://www.amazon.com/How-Lie-Statistics-Darrell-Huff/dp/0393310728/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1466249991&sr=1-1&keywords=how+to+lie+with+statistics
There’s plenty of data to indicate climate change is real yet look how many people don’t believe it and further, don’t get me started on flat earthers.
If interested, this is an excellent book: How to Lie with Statistics
Edit: I realize it sounds like I’m dismissing the role and the possibilities of it, but that’s not the case. It’s just a tough row to hoe. :)
You may be interested in the book How to Lie with Statistics. This and other techniques are discussed in depth.
How to Lie with Statistics
By Darrell Huff
Read this book in 1990. Taught me more about how to consume the news and what politicians said than anything I learned in school. Should be required reading. The message has not changed since Huff wrote it in the 50s.
Mind if I introduce you to a new book?
It's not a case of liking guns. It's a case of our given rights that you twats seem to think that the government should take away. And did you even read my last comment?
A bit off topic, but people argue that the government has no right telling them what they can do with their own bodies, (drugs and abortion) or that they can not decide who can and can't marry (Gay msrriage) but these same people believe and expect the government to violate the second ammendment of the Constitution to get rid of guns. I am in no way trying to start an argument about any of these issues, just making a point.
Your source is claiming the number of guns, not number of guns in a general vicinity. So you think that being in the same room as two guns doubles your chance of getting hurt? Hah Goodluck with that. You should read this book.
http://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/0393310728/ref=redir_mdp_mobile/187-6282016-2616510
Also, I can cite sources that day what I want them to say also.
http://gunssavelives.net/blog/cdc-report-on-guns-ordered-by-obama-says-self-defense-is-common-gun-carriers-less-likely-to-be-harmed/
This is a great book that we used back in college nicely illustrates this thread for those interested
How to Lie with Statistics https://www.amazon.com/dp/0393310728/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_apa_i_h8wbBb6Q1A1K7
Edit: the book title is tongue-in-cheek, this is not simply a how-to guide
Bite, this is called "How to lie with statistics" .. you can always find a metric that will support any argument. She lost. She should have won. It's on her.
[](https://www.amazon.ca/How-Lie-Statistics-Darrell-Huff/dp/0393310728) -- great book, timeless, simple but excellent.
http://www.amazon.com/How-Lie-Statistics-Darrell-Huff/dp/0393310728
Ik kan het niet genoeg aanraden.
Those neanderthals can't be trusted. See also: How to Lie with Statistics.
Forever a skeptic.
They cover this type of marketing in How to Lie with Statistics and after I read it I stopped believing most figures a company spouts.
As usual, Ynet brings no relevant facts. What are the statistics in IL? Who are the concerned parties?
The fact that NYC has been barking up the wrong tree for 6 years fails to impress me as well. Stupid for 6 years or stupid for 10 is still stupid.
>3x more likely
If Farly spoke as quoted in that article the man needs to be denounced for the liar that he is. As for the "triple risk" claim, I think maybe someone read this book because the numbers dont support that claim at all.
This question is incredibly poorly worded, or intentionally written to skew answers in one direction. I am not in favor of "government run health care." I am in favor of a "public option," "government provided health insurance," "health care reform," etc.
An interesting read that is relevant, How to Lie with Statistics:
http://www.amazon.com/How-Lie-Statistics-Darrell-Huff/dp/0393310728/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1250481585&sr=8-1
How to Lie with Statistics. It was written a long time ago so take that into account with the language.
Read this and this, learn. This stuff is not new.
This book should be required reading for everyone.
http://www.amazon.com/How-Lie-Statistics-Darrell-Huff/dp/0393310728
> effieokay: "Can anyone explain why the economic stats are so good and so bad at the same time?"
"How to Lie with Statistics"
Not sure why you're getting downvoted. This is absolutely true.
For anyone surprised by this, I have a book for you.
Oooh, have fun at your course! That sounds interesting! I only just figured out how to "copy and paste" in photoshop.
These earplug things because I can't study with lots of noise around
Less needed:
Han Solo Decal to scare off potential intruders
Cow Abduction Calendar - Because it's awesome
This book because I hope to do an after-degree in statistics and it seems useful
This movie because Halloween is coming!
Thanks for hosting this contest! <3
It is a fuck ton of people.
But here you go:
https://www.amazon.com/How-Lie-Statistics-Darrell-Huff/dp/0393310728
As I've said, I don't care about polls because they are super easy to fake. Even if you don't fake them and have 100% genuine answers, you can go to a ghetto where people are predominantly pro or against something and skew data in that way.
I don't care who conducts them because you never know the ownership structure of companies they are representing.
Polls are one of the least reliable sources of information and should never be used to draw conclusions.
Edit: Read How to Lie with Statistics. You'll see what I'm talking about. I've delt with far too many organizations and businesses that talk out of their ass about their numbers and projections that aren't based on anything remotely real. Heck, governments do this shit as well. Most of the times it's wishful thinking combined with ignorance and pursuit of a political agenda aka total rubbish.
I don't doubt it's used there, but statistics are surprisingly easy to fuck with if you know what you're doing. This book was particularly enlightening.
https://www.amazon.com/How-Lie-Statistics-Darrell-Huff/dp/0393310728
https://www.hltv.org/stats?startDate=2019-09-26&amp;endDate=2019-10-26&amp;matchType=Lan&amp;rankingFilter=Top30
https://www.amazon.ca/How-Lie-Statistics-Darrell-Huff/dp/0393310728
&#x200B;
One of my favourite books being put to good use, I see.
http://www.amazon.com/How-Lie-Statistics-Darrell-Huff/dp/0393310728
god... this just reinforces the reason why everyone should read How to Lie with Statistics
This poll just raises as many questions as it answers
You provided half of what is needed to make that a meaningful number. I already outlined what would make it meaningful, so still, so much completely useless stats.
Even if we accept it's an over representation, I dont by the way, you're extrapolating info off of 21 arrests vs 12, to the hundreds of thousands that come for the fireworks?
Do you have a degree? Did it not require stats? I know almost every single one from UBC requires one, same with Uvic, same with UofT. I have no first hand knowledge beyond that, but I imagine most do. If you do, you know you can't do that, and you look silly.
Read this book if you actually think what you're saying has any basis in reality. You'd be laughed at in any serious forum.
Read this book, it's very small. http://www.amazon.ca/How-To-Lie-With-Statistics/dp/0393310728
It'll help you build arguments based in reality in the future. I can't imagine you made it through school without reading it already, but maybe. Right now, you're lying with stats. Only the uneducated wouldn't pick up on it.
So I understand your point, but my questions were more about pointing out that its a complicated issue. I also get frustrated when I hear politicians simplify complicated issues by saying things like "Its working" or the opposite. Then again, they are politicians: this is what they do.
If you start with the opinion that it is a lie, and go looking for evidence to support that opinion, I'm sure you'll find some. But it will just be the other side of a bunch of rhetoric, not a useful picture of the real story.
May be of interest: http://www.amazon.com/How-Lie-Statistics-Darrell-Huff/dp/0393310728
Lol. Ok. Good luck with that. Might actually work on people who know nothing about stats. Edit: Further reading for you
Where did you read about majority of Islam population trying to institute Sharia law? There are always going to be minority #s of idiots in every group - just like Christians want to make Jesus the official man of America. Those polls are extremely biased. They take certain groups or poll in certain areas of the world. If you're saying that they surveyed all muslims or a certain muslim population and came up with that poll result / conclusion then that shows the ignorance of the entire statement. Not saying you're ignorant but you need to understand that Islam in Bosnia, Islam in Iraq, Islam in East Iraq, Islam in North Iraq, Islam in SA, Islam in Virginia, Islam in Canada, Islam in China, Islam in Russia, Islam in Iran are all very VERY VERY different to the point where they kill each other just like the Christians did years ago for their differences. Please don't use those polls as sources to guide your opinions and view facts. Check out "how to lie using statistics" book and link below to help understand what I'm saying:
http://www.forbes.com/forbes/welcome/?toURL=http://www.forbes.com/sites/gregsatell/2015/05/30/how-numbers-can-lie/&amp;refURL=https://www.google.com/&amp;referrer=https://www.google.com/
https://www.amazon.com/How-Lie-Statistics-Darrell-Huff/dp/0393310728
How to Lie with Statistics by Darrell Huff
Ahhh okay so this gets into another bit about understanding polling data. When news outlets refer to Trump's polling numbers, or any others for that matter, they are talking about people who have registered as Republican/Democrat/Independent. I want to say somewhere in the neighborhood of 20% of American's are "registered Republicans" while 30%+/- are "registered Democrats".
So when they say nearly 40% of Republicans favor Donald Trump, what they are really saying is 8% of Americans favor Trump. The latter is still a pretty terrifying number, but not nearly as much as the former.
Another aspect to this is whether those people are actually going to vote. Since the percentage of Americans who vote in Presidential elections typically hovers near 60%, not every single person pollsters call will actually vote. Most polling companies, to account for this, develop a system of identifying "likely voters". As we get closer to the election, you'll start seeing more polls identifying their stats with this "likely voter" tag instead of "registered republican".
Like I said before, the statistics don't lie. People lie. If you want to read more about that, I suggest How To Lie With Statistics which does a really good job of showing you what to look for not just in polling data, but any graph or stat someone shows you.
> I said they were about average for the city. Which they are.
Show me. Though I fear we're treading into confirmation bias territory, I would be interested in any city-wide data comparisons you can provide.
> That would be a much better way to tell if they're helping their kids learn than this snapshot.
A series of snapshots is called a motion picture but, still, I agree: oranges to oranges comparisons are always preferable. This school, however, isn't an orange, it's a miniature kumquat, making it hard to draw direct comparisons.
I'm a fan of schools experimenting with ways to color outside the box and I like the premise of mastery based education. The unanswered question isn't whether or not this school is doing anything radically experimental (it isn't) or whether or not what they are doing is radically effective (it isn't.) The question calls up a simple cost-benefit decision: whether or not it's fair to divert resources from the rest of the population to fund a program that is going to see many of any cohort age out before they achieve mastery. Imagine if every school had two teachers in each classroom and a 7:1 ratio.
Sometimes it sucks to be a square peg in a round hole world but that doesn't mean we should be retooling every hole to accommodate the outliers. The job of the public schools isn't to balance the scales to assure equal outcomes, it's to provide equal treatment and opportunity. This school is the proverbial thumb on the scale that inherently means other schools are underserved.
Here's a classic must-read!
Any of y'all ever heard of the book, "How to Lie with Statistics". It was written in 1954. Still a gem today: Amazon
www.amazon.com/How-Lie-Statistics-Darrell-Huff/dp/0393310728
"Your personal anecdotes"
Dude, the world is FULL of people who drink that have no problem. If you had a problem, it's just that: your fucking problem.
Oh, and yes, statistics lie better then anyone. Obviously you don't have much of an education.
"There are three kinds of lies: Lies, damned lies, and statistics" - Mark Twain
"How to lie with statistics"
https://www.amazon.com/How-Lie-Statistics-Darrell-Huff/dp/0393310728
My first class in business school (a great school btw) was to read this book - the point was to be critical when looking at data/charts/etc and be mindful of this type of BS. Great book if this type of thing interests you.
http://www.amazon.com/How-Lie-Statistics-Darrell-Huff/dp/0393310728
Here's a good read for you.
I feel like you're deliberately missing the entire point about women avoiding dangerous situations, and men being more likely to engage in them.
You're just looking at statistics in a vacuum; https://www.amazon.com/How-Lie-Statistics-Darrell-Huff/dp/0393310728
Did you know that women are more likely to be raped by someone they know than by a stranger. Therefore statistically, I'm making any women I know walk home by herself at night safer! In fact all men should stop offering to escort any women they know, because as you describe, 'they may feel more safe with someone they know, but that feeling does not make them less likely to be a victim of a crime by someone they know'. See how retarded that sounds?
I'll repeat my last question as you never answered it, do you honestly think that women are not more vulnerable to these things than men? What about walking home at night? Do you usually think, "Well if I was a female I'd feel safe, but knowing the statistics I just don't feel safe as a male"?
I took a look and a great deal of context is missing from the image. In hindsight, it's obvious that the lower part of the image is only there to bolster the credibility of the upper part. Further, the above conclusion is not supported by the data or the report. Pew research does not assert any conclusions based on the data collected.
The image you posted earlier amounts to lying with statistics, it's accurate based on the sample but meaningless with context, this is probably why the report authors did not attempt to draw any conclusion themselves.
Dude, is that really your best ammunition? For fuck's sake, try harder if you're going to pretend you've "got" me.
But, that would require you to have original thoughts instead of regurgitating "facts" because their counter-mainstream nature makes it easier for you to crank it. Have you considered picking up this book? Maybe it'll help you figure out things a bit more before your parents cut you off.
If that were the case, one could simply show them the science.
In addition, the politicians we are discussing have access to the science already. Your excuse doesn't explain why the cdc would bury the evidence on dgu. It doesn't explain why the study of the assault weapon ban found it was worthless at best, but the writers still refused to say it was bad policy. Studies are done with a bias built in, and a predetermined outcome in an attempt to defeat what the proof already says.
The cherry picking and other "lying with statistics" techniques don't happen on accident.
The public might genuinely be fooled, but bloomberg, feinstein, clinton et al very obviously know that removing guns will kill people.
So what other motive is possible?
OP right now
Ai ales ce date ai vrut tu ca sa fortezi o corelatie. Nici macar nu ai inceput de la 0.
http://www.amazon.com/How-Lie-Statistics-Darrell-Huff/dp/0393310728
To understand the good practices of dataviz, you have to understand graphical design and statistics. Edward Tufte has some great books, like The Visual Display of Quantitative Information, that are great starters. Another great book is How to Lie with Statistics. Finally, an entry level book for statistics would be a nice addition, but only if you're interested in actually learning about statistics.
Thanks for the recommendation :)
I'm reading now some pages of its amazon preview.
I never had a statistics class in college, but back in high school I read a fascinating, skinny little book called How To Lie With Statistics. I read it multiple times and always seemed to find some new angle I missed the previous time. It sure opened my young eyes to how easy it is to mislead people by carefully manipulating how data is presented.
Reminds me of the fun book, How to Lie with Statistics by Darrell Huff.
Here you go OP:
https://www.amazon.ca/How-Lie-Statistics-Darrell-Huff/dp/0393310728
I've been reading through this book that someone pointed me to last week.
Basically, polls do mean something but for the most part, the polling data can be interpretated in a whole number of ways to achieve an outcome favourable to the poll sponsor.
I recommend Darrell Huff's How to Lie with Statistics. Clearly required reading in the nVidia marketing department.
exactly the same here. I looked at it and was like "wow, I should be packing an iPhone!" But it's funny because yeah I like minimalism, so my Android is customized to be minimalist. Oh look at that, I use Gmail, not Yahoo. Interesting. Planet Earth you say? Well I watch that, but that has nothing to do with my phone of choice.
These statistics are so out there and only play on the stereotypes of the users rather than provide legitimate data. They must have read a copy of this before making the infographic.
A quick and dirty stand in for those who missed the window in college - take a couple of hours to read How to Lie with Statistics (http://www.amazon.com/How-Lie-Statistics-Darrell-Huff/dp/0393310728). Published in 1954, and documents the weaselly not-quite-lies of advertisers, salesmen (of any gender), and politicians.
I read it 30 years ago, and still think of it often.
This might help make sense of the numbers
It is amusing how reality shows that dv and rape are declining.. yet hysteria and just plain bad science is used to paint it like it is an exploding growing phenomenon.
It's more a reference to a book I really liked.
Maybe Christians have read this.
http://www.amazon.ca/How-To-Lie-With-Statistics/dp/0393310728
That's still bullshit why did you change your tone? If the range is small at about 20 or so percentage points than it makes perfect sense to lower the axis range to show the rapid changes in percentages.. On a side note read [How To Lie With Statistics] (https://www.amazon.com/How-Lie-Statistics-Darrell-Huff/dp/0393310728) Read in 12th grade AP Statistics, best book I ever read.
Lies, damn lies, and statistics!
> I am aware that I have privileges.
As a social scientist (of the dismal variety) I am pretty dismayed at the rise of this gibberish, it is entirely wrong based on how we understand race, ethnicity and gender to actually function in the real world and distracts from the real issues that still face various groups of people.
You should reject privilege because its nonsense not because you don't contribute towards it. Regarding the "checklist" most of the items are simply outright wrong or misleading, to pull one example out in the misleading category;
> If a traffic cop pulls me over or if the IRS audits my tax return, I can be sure I haven't been singled out because of my race.
Work in the last couple of decades on how the justice system in general responds to PoC has focused on distinguishing between overt racism (pulling someone over because they are black) and situational statistical bias (pulling over someone driving a suspect car in a bad neighborhood which has increased police presence, as statistically these neighborhoods have a higher incidence of black people such situations introduce a non-racist bias in to metrics), papers like this have investigated these effects.
Generally discrimination tends to be along socioeconomic lines rather then ethnic or gender lines, people discriminate against those they consider poor rather then those from a different ethnicity and/or gender.
Also the IRS comment is particularly odd as if you were looking at stats it would appear the IRS were targeting White & Asian people, in reality (as with so many other things) its simply that the incidence of audits is higher among the wealthy and racial demographics of the wealthy are more strongly White/Asian then the population as a whole. Its easy to read too much in to statistics as presented, this is required reading for economics students precisely because of how simple and prevalent this problem is.
> Numbers don't lie. It's all math and logic
That is definitely not true. What is "true" depends on your theories, your models, and your axioms. Even if you have that settled, there's so many ways to cook the books. Even after you account for fraud or mistakes (whether it be malice or zealotry or stupidity), you have to make decisions, and how your results are used depends on your decision calculus. And even if the whole world agrees on the same decision calculus, there's the issue of funding. The fields that are most explored tend to be the ones with the most cash pumped into them. And that allocation of cash is inherently tied into big business and government.
Real world example of a science absolutely INFILTRATED with leftists: Psychology.
https://www.amazon.com/How-Lie-Statistics-Darrell-Huff/dp/0393310728
Spez: for the people who downvoted me, a quote from Einstein:
>It is the theory that decides what we can observe.
How to Lie with Statistics
> Statistics themselves are not racist. Statistics themselves do not hold a view. Statistics alone present facts that one can infer the results.
http://www.amazon.com/How-Lie-Statistics-Darrell-Huff/dp/0393310728/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&amp;qid=1452262758&amp;sr=8-1&amp;keywords=how+to+lie+with+statistics
I question methodology of modern polls. Knowing someone who works for one of the major pollsters, I can quite confidently say that polls, especially political polls, are massaged according to what outcome the client wants. They have long been used as a means to an end, not an accurate description of data. The book I reference explains this quite well and was written in 1954. It's called How to Lie with Statistics.
http://www.amazon.com/How-Lie-Statistics-Darrell-Huff/dp/0393310728
You made me literally lol. Up vote!!!
http://www.amazon.com/How-Lie-Statistics-Darrell-Huff/dp/0393310728
Here's a good book for you.
https://www.amazon.com/How-Lie-Statistics-Darrell-Huff/dp/0393310728
LOL - "Food stamp usage is highest in Red States" doesn't mean that "conservatives are using them". And even your "arguments against inevitable arguments" uses insanely broad definitions to obscure the truth.
GJ on the flawed logic. -- Please read "How to Lie with Statistics", it's a great book.
[Here's the stats from Pew Research](http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2013/07/12/the-politics-and-demographics-of-food-stamp-recipients/
) - a largely non-conservative, non-liberal group. -- They got their info BY ASKING INDIVIDUALS, not by hiding their bias in broad definitions.
------------------
I know you're brain can't handle this, but gasp I'M NOT A REPUBLICAN. I'm actually an Anarcho-Capitalist!! WHOOOAAAAA!!
Please! Insult Republicans more! They are largely idiots! But FOR THE LOVE OF GOD, quit acting like Democrats are the saviors of the universe.
> statistics don't lie
How to lie with statistics
thanks, there's tons of info to check on, yea the limited impression & assumption i had made was based on a subset of data, and that may have given me a certain bias, and i should find out what the full picture is one day, tho things would've changed, so would never be able to get an accurate picture of the past. as an aside, everything significant is relevant to me, i just cant state billion of things into one post, and that's interesting, and im sure others would find that interesting also
just to clarify, 'what were the most impactful factors throughout history' is about everything and anything and is not necessarily or exclusively or only about policy-related stuff; in fact the answer may not even mention anything about policy. the example given was just an example and was not meant to bias anyone into one context or another completely different context
to come to good conclusions, we need all the relevant examples and all the relevant cases and all the relevant info, and most especially, we absolutely need the sources, because many sources are biased and flawed in many ways. we need reliable sources that's going to be the most important thing of all
we should always keep in mind (at least when we care about the root/real/main answer) the difference between:
2. evidence - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Levels_of_evidence
3. data (flawed or not)
there's a very very large difference, and that's for anyone in science, or not
> statistics tell truths
Lies, damned lies and statistics
Book : How to lie with statistics
Statistics absolutely can tell truths, they can also be corrupted and used to tell lies.
Statistics
Like everything else it is relative from state to state, from city to city, and neighborhood to neighborhood. Fix the economic issues, and the decaying neighborhoods and you'll see your gun homicide rate go down.
Learned about this in college Statistics 101.
http://www.amazon.com/How-Lie-Statistics-Darrell-Huff/dp/0393310728
"Median" - who the fuck judges much of anything by the Median?
http://www.amazon.com/How-Lie-Statistics-Darrell-Huff/dp/0393310728
I'm not going to bother because I'm not the one who's worried about the danger. But, anyone who is worried, but is persuaded by this image, needs to be locked in a room with a copy of How to Lie with Statistics, and let out only after they've performed an interpretive dance summarizing the salient points.
Also, "4-H Club of America, 2006" isn't exactly Googleable. Maybe How to Lie with Statistics can have a printout of the Devil's Guide to Citing the Literature stapled to it.
relevant link
You need to read this: https://www.amazon.com/How-Lie-Statistics-Darrell-Huff/dp/0393310728
How about you read this book and then talk about how I'm being silly. Besides, OP didn't even use the word 'average' anywhere in the original post. So what are you even talking about?
...And on all of these charts, including Media Matters', the baseline is 8...
Also: How To Lie With Statistics
The pro-PFF circlejerk is even dumber.
If you can't see the massive flaws in their methodology, I don't know what to tell you.
"We came up with a flawed system and asked 10 people if they could tell the difference between different criteria taken totally out of context."
Do you ever go to /r/conspiracy or /r/conspiratard?
Have you ever seen these people use math out of nowhere?
Have you ever seen the people who try to get numbers out of the bible to predict when Jesus is coming back?
And of course he never comes back, does he?
But these people just keep moving the goalposts.
It doesn't matter because the initial thing is flawed.
PFF are trying to defend themselves and it's laughable. This is a wakeup call for them. "Fuck, if our system grades him that badly, is there a flaw in it? Naah, let's fucking double down and repeat ourselves over and over again. That's how they do it in fundamentalist religions. How can we get the math to show only the facts that support our point?"
I have said this since PFF came on the scene: their analysis is worthless because it can't account for context and moving parts. Grading something that is inherently flawed doesn't provide you a reliable observation just because you can repeat the flaw ad nauseum.
Look I get it - you like PFF. People like to take things that sound authoritative on faith. Not everyone is anti-authoritarian. But FFS, you don't have to be. All you need to do is open your eyes and say "wow, if they downgraded him under pressure, how is the pressure he was facing on the poorly graded play different than someone who got a good grade under pressure when...the weather was different. Fatigue was different. The players were all totally different. Down, distance, score, time on the clock were all different."
How many relevant criteria do I need to name for you until you admit that what they're trying to do is impossible? It's an insult that they would attempt to sell us snake oil in this way, as if their use of statistics makes it true.
http://www.amazon.com/How-Lie-Statistics-Darrell-Huff/dp/0393310728/
Put this on your wishlist. I will buy it for you.
http://www.amazon.com/How-Lie-Statistics-Darrell-Huff/dp/0393310728/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1334518665&sr=8-1
great book
http://www.amazon.com/How-Lie-Statistics-Darrell-Huff/dp/0393310728