Lies or Misuse?: Comment on “Lies, Damned Lies, and Statistics (in Geology)”

Lies, damned lies and……….

The well-known quotation “There are lies, damned lies and statistics” suggests that statistics doesn’t have the greatest of reputations. Why is this? Certainly, statistics can be used to mislead, but logically “lies, damned lies and statistics” reflects high levels of statistical misunderstanding rather than indicating that statistics are inherently ‘bad’. In Bad Science, Ben Goldacre highlight...

Lies , Damned Lies , and Coverage

Functional coverage is a key metric for establishing the overall completeness of a verification process; however, empirical evidence suggests that coverage models are often inaccurate, misleading and incomplete. This paper proposes that such coverage defects are extremely common and since coverage analysis tends to focus on holes, or missing coverage, rather than the accuracy of what is already...

Lies, Damned Lies, and Health Inequality Measurements

Measuring and monitoring socioeconomic health inequalities are critical for understanding the impact of policy decisions. However , the measurement of health inequality is far from value neutral, and one can easily present the measure that best supports one's chosen conclusion or selectively exclude measures. improving people's understanding of the often implicit value judgments is therefore im...

Lies, damned lies, and political campaigns

Despite a pervasive presence in politics, lying has not traditionally played a role in formal models of elections. In this paper we develop a model that allows candidates in the campaign stage to misrepresent their policy intentions if elected to office, and in which the willingness to lie varies across candidates. We find that candidates more willing to lie are favored, but that this advantage...

"Lies, damned lies and criminal statistics": reinterpreting the criminal statistics in England and Wales.