How to Lie with Statistics

How to Lie with Statistics is a book written by <a href="/facts/Darrell_Huff/lgaeF31R">Darrell Huff</a> in 1954, presenting an introduction to <a href="/facts/Statistics/DNPsKGYU">statistics</a> for the <a href="/facts/General_reader/C28BYdC5">general reader</a>. Not a statistician, Huff was a journalist who wrote many how-to articles as a freelancer.
The book is a brief, breezy illustrated volume outlining the <a href="/facts/Misuse_of_statistics/Y54zXJVs">misuse of statistics</a> and errors in the interpretation of statistics, and how errors create incorrect conclusions.
In the 1960s and 1970s, it became a standard textbook introduction to the subject of statistics for many college students. It has become one of the best-selling statistics books in history, with over one and a half million copies sold in the English-language edition. It has also been widely translated.
Themes of the book include "<a href="/facts/Correlation_does_not_imply_causation/IeWeoMB9">Correlation does not imply causation</a>" and "Using <a href="/facts/Random_sampling/kIb01xdL">random sampling</a>." It also shows how statistical graphs can be used to distort reality. For example, by truncating the bottom of a line or bar chart so that differences seem larger than they are. Or, by representing one-dimensional quantities on a pictogram by two- or three-dimensional objects to compare their sizes so that the reader forgets that the images do not scale the same way the quantities do.
The original edition contained illustrations by artist <a href="/facts/Irving_Geis/NYra1r6T">Irving Geis</a>. In a UK edition, Geis' illustrations were replaced by cartoons by <a href="/facts/Mel_Calman/o1ftAJDz">Mel Calman</a>.

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How to Lie with Statistics