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Mansa Musa was the ruler of the Mali Empire in West Africa. Details recorded here should be sourced; unknown information is left blank.
MORE →Reflects the personal views, recollections, and perspective of the author, Mike Davis.
This is a personal recollection on the Move fire on May 13, 1985
Darrell Huff | |
|---|---|
| Born | July 15, 1913 |
| Died | June 27, 2001 (aged 87) |
| Education | University of Iowa |
| Spouse | Frances Marie Nelson (m. 1937) |
| Children | 4 daughters |
| Writing career | |
| Notable work | How to Lie with Statistics |
Darrell Huff (July 15, 1913 – June 27, 2001) was an American writer, and is best known as the author of How to Lie with Statistics (1954), the best-selling statistics book of the second half of the twentieth century.[1]
Huff was born in Gowrie, Iowa, and educated at the University of Iowa, (BA 1938, MA 1939).[2] Before turning to full-time writing in 1946, Huff served as editor of Better Homes and Gardens and Liberty magazine. As a freelancer, Huff produced hundreds of "How to" feature articles and wrote at least sixteen books, most of which concerned household projects. One of his biggest projects was a prize-winning home in Carmel-by-the-Sea, California, where he lived until his death.
Huff married Frances Marie Nelson in 1937. At her instigation, Huff gave up his editorial work (which had become a "rat race" for him) and they moved to California in 1946, bought ten acres in the Valley of the Moon. They built their own house, and later several more houses. Frances Marie would sometimes be Huff's co-author. They had four daughters. Two would assist with his last books.[3]
Huff is credited with introducing statistics to a generation of college and high-school students through clear writing and amusing anecdotes, even though he had no formal training in statistics. His most famous book, How to Lie with Statistics, was "possibly the most popular book on statistics ever published".[2] His books have been published in over 22 languages.
Huff also worked for the cigarette companies. Stanford historian Robert N. Proctor wrote that Huff "was paid to testify before Congress in the 1950s and then again in the 1960s, with the assigned task of ridiculing any notion of a cigarette-disease link. On March 22, 1965, Huff testified at hearings on cigarette labeling and advertising, accusing the recent Surgeon General's report of myriad failures and 'fallacies'."[4]
Huff was later funded by the tobacco industry to publish a follow-up to his book on statistics: How to Lie with Smoking Statistics as a counterattack to the Surgeon General's 1964 Smoking and Health report.[2][5] The book was intended to be published by Macmillan, but near the end of 1968, the plans for its publication came to an abrupt halt for unclear reasons. It was not until the Tobacco Master Settlement Agreement in 1998 that the existence of the book, letters between Huff and tobacco industry lawyers discussing it, and the entire unpublished manuscript itself became publicly available.[2][6] Huff himself never gave an explanation why the project was stopped. Gelman (Columbia University) suggested Huff could have intentionally killed the project to save his reputation, but thinks we'll never know since the documents provide no clue.[2][5]
Quotations related to How to Lie with Statistics at WikiquoteSource: Wikipedia. Article content is retrieved live through the MediaWiki API.
Darrell Huff (July 15, 1913 – June 27, 2001) was an American writer, and is best known as the author of How to Lie with Statistics (1954), the best-selling statistics book of the second half of the twentieth century.
Huff is a surname. Notable people with the surname include: Aquilla Huff (1779–?), American who founded Huff Township, Spencer County, Indiana Aubrey Huff (born 1976), American baseball player Bob Huff (born 1953), American politician Braden Huff (born 2005), American basketball player Brent Huff (born 1961), American actor, writer and film director Bryce Huff (born 1997), American football player Daniel W. Huff (1854–1940), American politician Dann Huff (born 1960), singer, guitarist, songwriter and producer, and foundation member of 80s hard rock band Giant Darrell Huff (1913–2001), economist and author of How to Lie with Statistics David Huff (musician), drummer (born 1961), songwriter and record producer, and foundation member of Giant along with brother Dann David Huff (baseball) (born 1984), American former Major League Baseball player Douglas Huff (1931–1988), American politician Gail Huff, reporter for Boston's WCBV-TV, and wife of U.S. Senator Scott Brown Gene Huff (1929–2011), American politician George Huff (coach) (1872–1936), American athlete and coach; manager of the Boston Red Sox George Huff (singer) (born 1980), American singer Glen A. Huff (born 1951), judge of the Virginia Court of Appeals Janice Huff (born 1960), meteorologist and TV anchor person Jay Huff (born 1998), American basketball player Josh Huff (born 1991), American football player Leon Huff (born 1942), Afro-American songwriter and record producer with Kenneth Gamble as Gamble and Huff Michael Huff (born 1983), American football player Nicole Huff (born 1998), Canadian actress Orlando Huff (born 1978), American football player Paul B. Huff (1918–1994), Medal of Honor recipient Sadie Robertson Huff, actress and Christian speaker Sam Huff (1934–2021), aka Robert Lee Huff, American football player, coach and commentator Sam Huff (baseball) (born 1998), American baseball player Tanya Huff (born 1957), Canadian fantasy author Tom Huff (American politician), American state legislator Warren D. Huff, professor of geology at the University of Cincinnati
In statistics, a misleading graph, also known as a distorted graph, is a graph that misrepresents data, constituting a misuse of statistics and with the result that an incorrect conclusion may be derived from it. Graphs may be misleading by being excessively complex or poorly constructed. Even when constructed to display the characteristics of their data accurately, graphs can be subject to different interpretations, or unintended kinds of data can seemingly and ultimately erroneously be derived. Misleading graphs may be created intentionally to hinder the proper interpretation of data or accidentally due to unfamiliarity with graphing software, misinterpretation of data, or because data cannot be accurately conveyed. Misleading graphs are often used in false advertising. One of the first authors to write about misleading graphs was Darrell Huff, publisher of the 1954 book How to Lie with Statistics. Data journalist John Burn-Murdoch has suggested that people are more likely to express scepticism towards data communicated within written text than data of similar quality presented as a graphic, arguing that this is partly the result of the teaching of critical thinking focusing on engaging with written works rather than diagrams, resulting in visual literacy being neglected. He has also highlighted the concentration of data scientists in employment by technology companies, which he believes can result in the hampering of the evaluation of their visualisations due to the proprietary and closed nature of much of the data they work with. The field of data visualization describes ways to present information that avoids creating misleading graphs.
How to Lie with Statistics is a book written by Darrell Huff in 1954, presenting an introduction to statistics for the general reader. Not a statistician, Huff was a journalist who wrote many how-to articles as a freelancer. The book is a brief, breezy illustrated volume outlining the misuse of statistics and errors in the interpretation of statistics, and how errors create incorrect conclusions. In the 1960s and 1970s, it became a standard textbook introduction to the subject of statistics for many college students. It has become one of the best-selling statistics books in history, with over one and a half million copies sold in the English-language edition. It has also been widely translated. Themes of the book include "Correlation does not imply causation" and "Using random sampling." It also shows how statistical graphs can be used to distort reality. For example, by truncating the bottom of a line or bar chart so that differences seem larger than they are. Or, by representing one-dimensional quantities on a pictogram by two- or three-dimensional objects to compare their sizes so that the reader forgets that the images do not scale the same way the quantities do. The original edition contained illustrations by artist Irving Geis. In a UK edition, Geis' illustrations were replaced by cartoons by Mel Calman.
Before the 1921 destruction of Tulsa’s Greenwood District, Black residents had created a remarkable center of business and community life. The district included stores, professional offices, entertainment venues and homes owned by Black citizens. Understanding Greenwood means learning what was built—not only what was burned.
MORE →Shirley Chisholm, elected in 1968.
