Research Catalog
Standard deviations : flawed assumptions, tortured data, and other ways to lie with statistics
- Title
- Standard deviations : flawed assumptions, tortured data, and other ways to lie with statistics / Gary Smith.
- Author
- Smith, Gary, 1945-
- Publication
- New York : Overlook Duckworth, 2014.
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| Status | Format | Access | Call Number | Item Location |
|---|---|---|---|---|
Available - Can be used on site. Please visit New York Public Library - Schwarzman Building M2 to submit a request in person. | Text | Use in library | JBE 18-718 | Schwarzman Building M2 - General Research Room 315 |
Details
- Description
- 326 pages : illustrations; 24 cm
- Summary
- "Did you know that baseball players whose names begin with the letter "D" are more likely to die young? Or that Asian Americans are most susceptible to heart attacks on the fourth day of the month? Or that drinking a full pot of coffee every morning will add years to your life, but two cups a day increases the risk of pancreatic cancer? All of these "facts" have been argued with a straight face by credentialed researchers and backed up with reams of data and convincing statistics. As Nobel Prize-winning economist Ronald Coase once cynically observed, "If you torture data long enough, it will confess." Lying with statistics is a time-honored con. In Standard Deviations, economics professor Gary Smith walks us through the various tricks and traps that people use to back up their own crackpot theories. Sometimes, the unscrupulous deliberately try to mislead us. Other times, the well-intentioned are blissfully unaware of the mischief they are committing. Today, data is so plentiful that researchers spend precious little time distinguishing between good, meaningful indicators and total rubbish. Not only do others use data to fool us, we fool ourselves. With the breakout success of Nate Silver's The Signal and the Noise, the once humdrum subject of statistics has never been hotter. Drawing on breakthrough research in behavioral economics by luminaries like Daniel Kahneman and Dan Ariely and taking to task some of the conclusions of Freakonomics author Steven D. Levitt, Standard Deviations demystifies the science behind statistics and makes it easy to spot the fraud all around"--
- Subjects
- Bibliography (note)
- Includes bibliographical references (pages 299-319) and index.
- Call Number
- JBE 18-718
- ISBN
- 9781468309201
- 146830920X
- LCCN
- 2014017052
- OCLC
- 2014017052
- Author
- Smith, Gary, 1945- author.
- Title
- Standard deviations : flawed assumptions, tortured data, and other ways to lie with statistics / Gary Smith.
- Publisher
- New York : Overlook Duckworth, 2014.
- Edition
- First edition.
- Type of Content
- text
- Type of Medium
- unmediated
- Type of Carrier
- volume
- Bibliography
- Includes bibliographical references (pages 299-319) and index.
- Connect to:
- Research Call Number
- JBE 18-718
