Continuing our series of How Not to Get Fooled by Statistics our post today is about recognising misleading graphs or charts. Data visualisation is good, it helps us easily understand otherwise complex data and focus on what’s important. However, it is also a powerful tool for data manipulation and deception. There are so many misleading graphs and charts out there,

This post is continuing the series on How not to get fooled by statistics. We talked earlier about the importance of checking the data sources and their relevance. Today’s topic is about cherry picking data to present only those that are favourable to the presenter while omitting the rest of the information. That may sound harmless at first but if

In the previous post we started talking about misleading statistics and how they can be used to deceive people. Since we have a lot to say about it, we decided to make it a series of posts, so we can focus on different issues. Today we will talk about the importance of the data sources when dealing with statistics. When

Scottish poet Andrew Lang is credited with having first used these words on statistics sometime around the turn of the 20th Century: “I shall try not to use statistics as a drunken man uses lamp-posts, for support rather than for illumination”. Yet, we live in a world increasingly bombarded with data on a wide range of topics. They are often