The Data Detective is yet another fine book from the Economist Tim Harford. The premise of this book is to give the layman some sense of examining and interrogating the statistics that are thrown at us in the media, government reports, and research reports.
Harford is a radio host, a popularizer of economics, as well
as a renowned economist. He is very well practiced in explaining the many
points of confusion that comes with statistically oriented reportage. He is
also an excellent writer. In this book he tries to dive into the rarified world
of statistics. As he is an economist, he is quite well versed in the area, but
it is one thing to be well versed, it is quite another to be well spoken in the
arcana of statistics, especially as those who are the producers of the statistics
do not practice disciplined statistical data gathering and analysis and are
sometimes confused at what they are trying to do. This is not to say that they
are naïve, or that they are deliberately obfuscating the discussions by
introducing unnecessary complexity. Even though there are those who are guilty
of obfuscation, most confusion in statistics come from unconscious biases,
which is the thrust of Harford’s book, as well as David Spiegelhalters’s The
Art of Statistics
Researchers, governments, advertisers, and people who has
malfeasance in their hearts will often confuse us intentionally with
statistics. Statistics are often so subtle that the interpretations that are
given to us often seem to make logical sense, even when the interpretations can
be skewed in many ways. This book seeks to explain some of the nuances and gives
us something to work with when we read the popular press, social media outlets, or when we are dealing
with very complex issues that cannot be explain with just simple statistics.
The complexity of some of these illicit statistics that are quite challenging.
Harford starts the book out in his introduction; he lays out
the case of why he's a tackling this problem as he cites a well-known book
written by Darrell Huff in 1954 titled How to Lie with Statistics. He
relates the story of Huff and his book and declares that this book is not trying
to cover the same grounds as Huff’s book. Indeed, Harford is trying to undo the
damage that Huff had inflicted on the credibility of statistics in the minds of
the public.
Harford neatly lays out his 10 rules for making sense of statistics, each rule are chapters
in the book explains why some of these rules are necessary. Harford digs into the past research and past events
that serves as examples of where the confusion originates. He then lays out the
landscape for the reader. Harford is exceptional at this particular phase of
explaining the problem because he is well practiced in explaining complex ideas
to the general public. The best part of
the book is that he is very clear on what he wants to say, he is very clear on
saying it, and he is clear on his opinion about all of these rules. The rules are quite nuanced, but they also are
quite useful in guiding us through similarly challenging issue which uses
statistics. His cerebral agility with the subject is helpful because he is able
to communicate the topic.
The problem with most books which seeks to explain
statistics is that the sometimes the authors over explains, relying on the
assumption that the reader has a well-grounded background in statistics, so the
technical jargons flows unabated; while other
times the authors under explain, assuming that the reader does not have any
common sense. To be fair, it is very difficult to get the level right because
it is difficult to reach a mass audience as the mass audience has varying
levels of expertise, but Harford seemed to have found a way to not condescend
to the reader while at the same time effectively educating the reader on the
basic essentials of statistics and statistical concepts. It is quite remarkable
how he does it and it is a bravura performance. He makes it easy for us to
understand these rules while also giving
us enough material to explain the
subtleties of each of these rules and their importance. The act of invoking 10
rules is somewhat gimmicky but it seems to work for Hartford because the
material sucked me in.
The most interesting chapter is the very last one, it invokes his Golden rule: Be curious. Harford
wrote this chapter to address the polarization of opinions which is rampant in present day society. This polarization is
derived from a number of factors and is exacerbated by the social media’s penchant
to encourage being right over learning. What Harford had found through various research
is that the best way to ease that tension and to decrease the polarization is
to appeal to the curiosity of your opponent; by appealing to their curiosity, we
are extending them an olive branch, to meet them halfway, and to offer to open up our minds to the civilized
discussions of the issue which seemingly divides us.
We have all experienced the aftereffects of trying to go
head to head against someone who has an opposing viewpoint: inevitably, both side would dig in even deeper
and the need to be right supersedes the need to understand the issue even
further. The nuances of the different shades
of grey that exists is painfully lost and forgotten.
I quite enjoyed this book. This book was recommended to me
by a friend who saw that I was struggling with some of the issues with statistics
that had saturated the air waves during the COVID 19 pandemic. Initially, I
looked upon this book with a certain amount of suspicion but since it is Tim
Harford and since he wrote one of my more favorite books: Messy, I took
a chance. I was glad that I did because this is a superb book. I think however,
that Harfords book with Spiegelhalter's book are complimentary, sothey should
be read, if not concurrently, then one closely followed by the other.
Harford also references many other authors in the fields of
psychology and economics. People like Tetlock, Kahneman, and so on. The saliency of Harford’s effort is that he helps
us to suss the essence of many of these ideas to make it understandable to an
educated audience but not an expert audience.
Works Cited
Spiegelhalter, David. The Art of Statistics:
Learning from Data. London: Pelican Books, 2019.
Stewart, Ian. Do Dice Play God: The Mathematics of
Uncertainty. New York: Profile Books, 2019.
