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Stat-Spotting: A Field Guide to Identifying Dubious Data
Are four million women really battered to death by their husbands or boyfriends each year? Does a young person commit suicide every thirteen minutes in the United States? Is methamphetamine our number one drug problem today? Alarming statistics bombard our daily lives, appearing in the news, on the Web, seemingly everywhere. But all too often, even the most respected publications present numbers that are miscalculated, misinterpreted, hyped, or simply misleading. Following on the heels of his highly acclaimed Damned Lies and Statistics and More Damned Lies and Statistics, Joel Best now offers this practical field guide to help everyone identify questionable statistics. Entertaining, informative, and concise, Stat-Spotting is essential reading for people who want to be more savvy and critical consumers of news and information.
Stat-Spotting
* Pertinent examples from today's news, including the number of deaths reported in Iraq, the threat of secondhand smoke, the increase in the number of overweight Americans, and many more
* A commonsense approach that doesn't require advanced math or statistics
Stat-Spotting
* Pertinent examples from today's news, including the number of deaths reported in Iraq, the threat of secondhand smoke, the increase in the number of overweight Americans, and many more
* A commonsense approach that doesn't require advanced math or statistics
132 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 2008
13 people are currently reading
162 people want to read
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Displaying 1 - 12 of 12 reviews
September 24, 2013
Are four million women really battered to death by their husbands or boyfriends each year? Does a young person commit suicide every thirteen minutes in the United States? Is methamphetamine our number one drug problem today? These are "facts" that many of us never question, no matter how alarming the numbers are. I see data and charts every day on the internet. Too often we are fed (and believe) numbers that are miscalculated, misinterpreted, hyped, or simply misleading. This book is by the same author as "Damned Lies and Statistics" and "More Damned Lies and Statistics". This is a great practical guide to help everyone identify questionable statistics. It is entertaining and informative. I read bits and pieces of it to my introductory stats students. It used great current data on the war in Iraq, secondhand smoke, overweight Americans, etc.
February 17, 2009
Stat-Spotting is a basic guide to recognizing questionable statistics. The author, Joel Best, is a professor of sociology and criminal justice and the author of two previous books on the misuse of statistics. He focuses mainly on the simple statistics found in news reports, so don't expect a detailed treatment of experimental design, regression analysis, or analysis of variance. This is simply a guide to identifying numbers that don't make sense, or that are reported without enough context to make sense of,or that are presented in a way that is biased or misleading.
Since his interest is mostly in sociological statistics he begins by laying out the background data that can put those numbers into their context: US population, number of births and deaths per year, leading causes of death and their frequencies, and so on. He then points out that, for the most part, extreme outcomes tend to occur less frequently than moderate outcomes.
He then describes many ways in which dubious data can make its way into publication: mistakes, guesses, overly broad or narrow definitions, sample bias, etc.
This is an interesting and useful book, requiring no mathematical background, and a good antidote to numerical gullibility.
Since his interest is mostly in sociological statistics he begins by laying out the background data that can put those numbers into their context: US population, number of births and deaths per year, leading causes of death and their frequencies, and so on. He then points out that, for the most part, extreme outcomes tend to occur less frequently than moderate outcomes.
He then describes many ways in which dubious data can make its way into publication: mistakes, guesses, overly broad or narrow definitions, sample bias, etc.
This is an interesting and useful book, requiring no mathematical background, and a good antidote to numerical gullibility.
February 1, 2015
In a key case study in this otherwise useful book, the author himself engages in the kind of statistical misuse that the book is meant to warn against. The speaks about the partisan uses of stats and cites the debates over deaths in Iraq as an example. He rightly rejects the Iraq Body Count numbers as a methdologically flawed undercount. He then mentions the 2006 Lancet study and notes that its method had greater rigor. But then adds that the Lancet's 650,000 mortality figure was contradicted by the subsequent WHO/IMH study which only arrived at a figure of 150,000. Except, the Lancet numbers referred to excess deaths -- that is death by all war related causes, not just violence -- whereas the WHO/IMH numbers refer specifically to violent deaths. The two numbers are not comparable. And this is precisely what the kind of common mistake that the author is warning against elsewhere in the book.
March 16, 2022
I think this book is perhaps best conceptualized as a follow-up or modernization of Darrell Huff's classic How To Lie With Statistics. That book, since it was first recommended to me by one of my math professors in college, has long been one of my favorites and represents a true triumph when it comes to communicating about technical mathematical ideas to a general readership. It's also many decades old and its examples, while still engaging and fascinating, are of less relevance to modern readers.
By his own admission, part of Best's goal with Stat-Spotting was to write a similar work with modern examples. In that goal, he largely succeeded. I still maintain that How to Lie With Statistics is a superior work and does a better job of helping the reader to really understand statistical thinking. However, Best's modern examples in Stat-Spotting will help modern readers understand the relevance of these ideas to reports they read every day in the newspaper.
In fact, I was surprised by the high quality of the examples presented. Because a lot of the examples, being related to modern issues, contain controversial ideas, I feared that they might be presented in a biased manner which at worst would cloud the statistical arguments and even at best, if the stats were all correct, would alienate a large portion of the potential readership. However, Best has done an admirable job of avoiding such political landmines. Different sides of controversial issues are presented along with their own supporting statistics, and the book openly discusses why such statistics--on both sides--may be unreliable, but makes no value judgments or final conclusions. Instead, the author merely equips the reader with the tools to more carefully evaluate numerical data, whether presented by one's own side or the opposition.
Where the book suffers a bit is in its treatment of statistics themselves. Everything in the book is focused on how statistics are reported, with very little consideration given to the mathematics. That's not to say I expect a book like this to provide detailed technical descriptions of statistical theory. However, it would have been incredibly useful to the reader if the author had included, even as an appendix, some discussions regarding the different kinds of statistical tests used, when they are or aren't appropriate, and how readers should interpret such matters as statistical significance or effect sizes.
All in all, while it's not the best book on statistics I've ever read, Stat-Spotting is an excellent guide to more mathematically literate consumption of information or news media, and for that I think the author should be applauded.
By his own admission, part of Best's goal with Stat-Spotting was to write a similar work with modern examples. In that goal, he largely succeeded. I still maintain that How to Lie With Statistics is a superior work and does a better job of helping the reader to really understand statistical thinking. However, Best's modern examples in Stat-Spotting will help modern readers understand the relevance of these ideas to reports they read every day in the newspaper.
In fact, I was surprised by the high quality of the examples presented. Because a lot of the examples, being related to modern issues, contain controversial ideas, I feared that they might be presented in a biased manner which at worst would cloud the statistical arguments and even at best, if the stats were all correct, would alienate a large portion of the potential readership. However, Best has done an admirable job of avoiding such political landmines. Different sides of controversial issues are presented along with their own supporting statistics, and the book openly discusses why such statistics--on both sides--may be unreliable, but makes no value judgments or final conclusions. Instead, the author merely equips the reader with the tools to more carefully evaluate numerical data, whether presented by one's own side or the opposition.
Where the book suffers a bit is in its treatment of statistics themselves. Everything in the book is focused on how statistics are reported, with very little consideration given to the mathematics. That's not to say I expect a book like this to provide detailed technical descriptions of statistical theory. However, it would have been incredibly useful to the reader if the author had included, even as an appendix, some discussions regarding the different kinds of statistical tests used, when they are or aren't appropriate, and how readers should interpret such matters as statistical significance or effect sizes.
All in all, while it's not the best book on statistics I've ever read, Stat-Spotting is an excellent guide to more mathematically literate consumption of information or news media, and for that I think the author should be applauded.
May 23, 2021
This book is easy to understand and the statistic examples chosen for each dissection helped clarify the potential flaws he pinpoints. You don’t need to be a math whiz to understand the flaws in the stats you and I read on a daily basis. I am always (100% of the time!) suspicious when I hear or read a number thrown out to support an argument. The understanding and knowledge gained from reading Joel Best’s “Stat Spotting Field Guide” (what? No italics?) will help any reader to understand why some of the stats/ numbers they come across make them uncomfortable.
January 10, 2015
This book is an interesting overview of different "smells" to look for when digesting statistics from media sources. While the examples and explanations of the different potential issues are interesting, my favorite part was at the beginning where he listed some of the baseline numbers that help put statistics in context (things like "current population of the US", for example). I would use this book as a reference if I was evaluating questionable statistics, but these baseline numbers are worth committing to memory.
February 3, 2011
This is not a book that one sits down and reads. Rather, it is a book that offers insights in "little bites". Best, introduces the reader to the reasons that statistics are often approached by many dubiously. The style of the book is choppy, hence lending to "little bites", but the information is very good. A nice book to keep on hand when watching the news (if there are any out there that still do that).
August 9, 2013
Good coaching on evaluating statistics in media - some a bit obvious but it definitely hones your awareness of data used to illustrate a point, such as selectively citing studies with small samples or using a lot of sources in a short period of time. I would read Joel Best's DAMNED LIES AND STATISTICS first (which has a recently updated edition):http://www.ucpress.edu/book.php?isbn=...
June 27, 2014
Quick read, and surprisingly fun! If you dig stuff like "Freakonomics" and "Everything Bad is Good For You," which make you rethink your assumptions about the world, you'll probably dig this book. Great intro to statistics for people like myself who can't stand books about math.
March 21, 2011
A quick read. Very fun and informative. There is a LOT of misinformation and mis-reporting of statistics, whether from dishonesty or simple incompetence.
November 19, 2014
All statistics I read now are under close scrutiny, especially if they don't cite where they obtained their data.
September 21, 2015
Surprisingly an interesting read that offers examples of bad data so you can learn how to be a skeptical stat-spotter.
Displaying 1 - 12 of 12 reviews