Abstract
One often hears statements such as these when challenging the figures used by an opponent. Benjamin Disreali, for example, is famously reputed to have declared, “There are three types of lies: lies, damned lies, and statistics.” This oft-quoted assertion implies that statistics and statistical methods represent a particularly underhanded form of deception. Indeed, individuals who mistrust statistics often find confirmation for their scepticism when two different statistical assessments of the same phenomenon arrive at diametrically opposed conclusions. Yet if statistics can invariably be manipulated to support one-sided arguments, what purpose do they serve?
Chapter 1 Translated from the German original, Cleff, T. (2011). 1 Statistik und empirische Forschung. In Deskriptive Statistik und moderne Datenanalyse (pp. 1–14) © Gabler Verlag, Springer Fachmedien Wiesbaden GmbH, 2011.
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Notes
- 1.
In 6/7 A.D., Judea (along with Edom and Samaria) became Roman protectorates. This passage probably refers to the census that was instituted under Quirinius, when all residents of the country and their property were registered for the purpose of tax collection. It could be, however, that the passage is referring to an initial census undertaken in 8/7 B.C.
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Cleff, T. (2014). Statistics and Empirical Research. In: Exploratory Data Analysis in Business and Economics. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-01517-0_1
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