Data Detective
by Tim Harford · first published 2021
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Today we think statistics are the enemy, numbers used to mislead and confuse us. That's a mistake, Tim Harford says in The Data Detective. We shouldn't be suspicious of statistics-we need to understand what they mean and how they can improve our lives: they are, at heart, human behavior seen through the prism of numbers and are often "the only way of grasping much of what is going on around us." If we can toss aside our fears and learn to approach them clearly-understanding how our own preconceptions lead us astray-statistics can point to ways we can live better and work smarter. As "perhaps t
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Wow, I had not known this: > As Tim Harford documents in his brilliant 2021 book The Data Detective, the 1954 classic “How to Lie With Statistics” was authored by a payrolled shill for Big Tobacco, Darrell Huff, whose planned (and never realized) followup was to be called “How to Lie With Smoking Statistics.”…
on “I quit – Peak indifference, big tobacco” ↗Thanks for sharing this article, I've already found 2 great book references, The Data Detective, and Subprime Attention Crisis. Edit: A third awesome book recommendation, Damon Knight's Why Do Birds Thanks for sharing this article, I treasure good writing like this.
on “Ad-Tech Is a Bezzle” ↗…That’s the subject of two new books about data and statistics: “Counting: How We Use Numbers to Decide What Matters”, by Deborah Stone, which warns of the risks of relying too heavily on numbers, and “The Data Detective”, by Tim Harford, which shows ways of avoiding the pitfalls of a world driven by data. Data is a powerful feedback mechanism that can enable system gamification; it can also expose it. The evil is extracting…
on “What Data Can’t Do” ↗