The Data Detective

This originally appeared at The Irresponsible Reader as part of a quick take catch-up post so I can catch up on my “To Write About” stack—emphasizing pithiness, not thoroughness..
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On the one hand, Hartford's aim is to dispel the myth that “to really lie, you use statistics.” But part of what he ends up saying is that they are pretty handy tools for (at least) misleading people. So I'm not sure the book's as successful as it could've been.

But what Hartford really does is show how to interpret statistics, to look behind the headlines and look at what the studies (or whatever) were looking into, what were they asking? And then to take the results reported in the news (or wherever) to use them to better understand things.

It's basically a guide to teach yourself critical thinking skills—something we could all use more of. I really enjoyed it, and probably need to read/listen to it a few more times to really internalize it.