Hand sanitizes kill 99% of gems! Wow! It seems that hand sanitizes are incredibly powerful. But the truth is, this number is tested in laboratory condition. In real world, they only kill 46%. But most people will not proceed to think this way. They are amazed by the 99% and then trust sanitizes’ unbelievable effect. Using sanitizes will not do much harm anyway and it is recommended using it after washing hands. This is an example of misleading statistics that does not cause too much damage. But in some other cases, the result will not be that beneficial.
Every day you are surrounded by statistics results: unemployment rate, median household income, life expectancy, etc. While they all seem scientific and credible, there is room for some tricks. People who have not received enough statistical education tend to believe in these figures without thinking too much. But it is important to know that figures and graphs can be manipulated to mislead people to believe in certain conclusions. Media often presents statistical results in order to strengthen the ethos of their content, but their stats can be misleading and biased. Learning how to correctly interpret statistical results will help you better understand charts and data so you will not easily get fooled by media.
This hitchhiker’s guide to tricky statistics will help you identify the tricks when looking at statistics results or charts. It will include examples of common misleading use of statistics methods as well as many unreliable conclusions. Here you will find six categories of statistical tricks that happen in your daily life. They are sampling tricks, biased survey, false use or interpretation of mean and median, mix correlation and causation, use distorted charts . On this website you can take a glance at how these tricks are made and some real examples of them. You can simply click pictures on the home page to get to the corresponding tricks. Or you can click the submenu of the menu tab “Trick” on the top of the page. If you think you need more information, on bottom of each page of the trick you can click “Click Here” to learn more.
The critique page includes a video from Arthur Benjamin’s TED talk. It then follows my own critic about his video.
If you believe you want to know more about the statistical tricks, feel free to check the links on the page “Additional Content”. Each link has a description of what it does.
On the right of the website you can see a link to my Goodreads review of How to Lie with Statistics by Darrell Huff. A lot of examples on this site are drawn from the book. Feel free to check this book.
Hopefully after visiting this website you will be able to know how to read statistics and not get blinded.
A Hitchhiker's Guide to Tricky Statistics 