Lies, Damned Lies, and Statistics

Statistics are indispensable for understanding a complex world. They can also mislead when definitions, scales, denominators, samples or comparisons are chosen carelessly — or deliberately.

The world surrounding us is becoming increasingly complex. This site looks at the mathematical side of that complexity and at recurring ways in which statistics, mathematics and scientific language are misused. The examples are intended to sharpen scepticism without encouraging a blanket distrust of numbers or science.

Lying with statistics is easy. One does not need to be a mathematician to select a convenient percentage, suppress an inconvenient denominator, choose a misleading graph or present correlation as causation. The more important skill is therefore not merely calculation, but the ability to ask what exactly has been measured, compared and omitted.

Innumeracy and mathematical blindness

Illiteracy is widely discussed, while innumeracy receives much less attention. Yet many otherwise well-educated adults have difficulties with graphical displays, risk estimates, percentages and statistical reasoning. The most serious problem is that people often do not notice the limitation in themselves.

This collection contains examples from science, politics, economics, pseudoscience and everyday life. Some texts are historical and reflect the debates and data available when they were written.