How to Tell the Liars from the Statisticians

This book shows how statistical reasoning affects all aspects of our lives. It touches on drug testing, discrimination, sports, political polls, compulsive gambling, gun detectors, cancer research, crime and punishment, opinion surveys, advertising, mass production, and doctors' waiting rooms.

"Statistics Are--Statistics Is Worry More on Worry Statistics and Chances Measuring Chances Chances and Drug Laws The Broad-Base Fallacy The Unmentioned Base The Elmer Gantry Effect When the Truth is Not the Whole Truth Ceteris Paribus Statistics of Discrimination A Paradox in Discrimination Statistics Smoking and Cancer People are Different Risk Taking in Industry The Risk Taker's Image When Should We Take Chances? Cost Accounting Bridges, Underpasses, and Corporate Profts Are You Average Enough? Infatuation with Averages The Law of Averages, Compulsive Gambling, and the Rubber Band Theory A Rational View of Luck Luck and Skill Combined Luck and Dependence Confidence and Dependence Sports ""Form'' and Consistency Who is Unemployed? Cost of Living Trade-Offs False Alarms Liberals and Conservatives One-Armed Consultants The GGFTGN, the Bill of Rights, and Other Things Things to Think about while Waiting to See the Doctor Zero or Nothing? Quality Control and ""Zero Defects'' Scaling Up and Down More is Less Large Samples and Bad News Rare Floods, Rare Scientists, and Frustrated Authors The World is Getting Smaller Population Size and the Quality of Life Raisins, Nuts, and Samples Political Polls Opinion Surveys Television Ratings---More of the Same The Significance of Significance Garbage In--Garbage Out The Double Negative and the Consumer The Double Negative and Social Science What is Correlation? The Coin that Won't Stand on Edge Guilt by Association Psychological Tests and Job Success Credit and Your Computer Kin College Entrance Tests Science and Statistics The Scientific Method Looking Backward vs. Looking Forward Controlled Experimentation Cause and Effect Value Judgments and Planning Serendipity---Puttering vs. Planning Unconscious Dishonesty Watch out for 67% What Experiments Can Learn from Football and Card Players A Digression on Random Digits and Computerized Simulation Generalizations Within vs. Between A Thought about Stereotypes Longevity at the Hot Corner Let's Save Some Money There are No Easy Solutions Separating the Liars from the Statisticians "

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