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'Even one glass of wine a day raises the risk of cancer’
‘Hate crimes have doubled in five years’
‘Fizzy drinks make teenagers violent’
Every day, most of us will read or watch something in the news that is based on statistics in some way. Sometimes it’ll be obvious - ‘X people develop cancer every year’ - and sometimes less obvious - ‘How smartphones destroyed a generation’. Statistics are an immensely powerful tool for understanding the world the best tool we have. But in the wrong hands, they can be dangerous.
This book will help you spot common mistakes and tricks that can mislead you into thinking that small numbers are big, or unimportant changes are important. It will show you how the numbers you read are made - you’ll learn about how surveys with small or biased samples can generate wrong answers, and why ice cream doesn’t cause drownings.
We are surrounded by numbers and data, and it has never been more important to separate the good from the bad, the true from the false. HOW TO READ NUMBERS is a vital guide that will help you understand when and how to trust the numbers in the news - and, just as importantly, when not to.
Introduction
How Numbers Can Mislead
Anecdotal Evidence
Sample Sizes
Biased Samples
Statistical Significance
Effect Size
Confounders
Causality
Is That a Big Number?
Bayes’ Theorem
Absolute vs Relative Risk
Has What We’re Measuring Changed?
Rankings
Is It Representative of the Literature?
Demand for Novelty
Cherry-picking
Forecasting
Assumptions in Models
Texas Sharpshooter Fallacy
Survivorship Bias
Collider Bias
Goodhart’s Law
Conclusion and Statistical Style Guide
Acknowledgements
Notes