By Joy Phillips As you may or may not know, 2013 marks the
celebration of the International Year of Statistics, coined
“Statistics2013” – a celebration to increase public awareness of
the power and impact of statistics on all aspects of society.
With that said, I could not help but bring to memory the phrase
“Lies, d***** lies, and statistics,” which is claimed to have
originated in England in the 19th century, but made popular in
America by Mark Twain in the 20th century. The phrase describes
the persuasive power of numbers to support an argument. But
wait: is it fair to refer to statistics as the highest form of
lying under any circumstance? First, let’s define statistics. In
Gerald Hahn and Necip Doganaksoy’s book A Career in Statistics:
Beyond the Numbers, the definitions include these parts: - The
science of learning from or making sense out of data; - The
theory and methods of extracting information from observational
data; and - The art of telling a story with numerical data. What
grabs my attention is