How To Lie With Statistics

For a while I helped out at a local high school, in a class on basic computer skills. The one thing I did that really seemed to engage the kids was an exercise drawn from the book on which this article is based-- Huff's "How to Lie With Statistics".

The exercise was to take a set of data and make two graphs, one demonstrating a point and the other demonstrating its opposite. I think the data had to do with student test scores over the years-- they had to prove that scores were going up, and that they were going down, by their choice of what to plot out of the dataset.

I really liked working with that book in the class. Its form factor makes it non-intimidating, not like a textbook. And I felt like the title added a frisson of transgression.