How to Accuse the Other Guy of Lying with Statistics

How to Accuse the Other Guy of Lying with Statistics

Charles Murray

Source: Statist. Sci. Volume 20, Number 3 (2005), 239-241.

Abstract

We’ve known how to lie with statistics for 50 years now. What we really need are theory and praxis for accusing someone else of lying with statistics. The author’s experience with the response to The Bell Curve has led him to suspect that such a formulation already exists, probably imparted during a secret initiation for professors in the social sciences. This article represents his best attempt to reconstruct what must be in it.

Keywords: Public policy; regression analysis; lying with statistics

Full-text: Open access

Screen Optimized PDF File (26 KB)

Links and Identifiers

Permanent link to this document: http://projecteuclid.org/euclid.ss/1124891290
Digital Object Identifier: doi:10.1214/088342305000000250
Mathematical Reviews number (MathSciNet): MR2189001
Zentralblatt MATH identifier: 1100.62532

back to Table of Contents

References

Herrnstein, R. J. and Murray, C. (1994). The Bell Curve: Intelligence and Class Structure in American Life. Free Press, New York.

Kohlberg, L. (1981). The Philosophy of Moral Development: Moral Stages and the Idea of Justice. Harper and Row, San Francisco.

Lomborg, B. (1998). The Skeptical Environmentalist: Measuring the Real State of the World. Cambridge Univ. Press.

previous :: next