Lung cancer rates had increased sixfold in the UK in just 15 years by 1950 the UK had the highest in the world, and deaths from lung cancer exceeded deaths from tuberculosis for the first time. As Huff wrote, “The crooks already know these tricks honest men must learn them in self-defense.”ĭoll and Hill could not have figured this out without statistics. Huff briskly moves on through a vast range of statistical crimes, from toothpaste advertisements based on cherry-picked research to maps that change their meaning depending on how you color them in. You can “prove” anything with statistics, it seems-even that storks deliver babies. All this means that the survey will present a grossly inflated view. Yale will keep track of the millionaire alumni, but some of the also-ran graduates might easily have slipped through the net. “Who are the little lost sheep down in the Yale rolls as ‘address unknown’?” asks Huff. And who are easily found? The rich and famous. Furthermore, the survey is only of people who bothered to respond-and only those alumni Yale could find. Huff explains that this “improbably salubrious” figure comes from self-reported data, which means we can expect people to exaggerate their income for the sake of vanity. That is just plausible enough to believe-this is Yale, after all-but half a million dollars a year is a lot of money. According to a 1950 survey, the class of 1924 had an average income of close to $500,000 a year in today’s terms. He begins by pondering how much money Yale graduates make. While there’s a clear pattern in the data, that pattern does not mean that storks cause babies to appear. Small countries such as Albania and Denmark have few babies and few storks. Large European countries such as Germany, Poland, and Turkey are home to many babies and many storks. Perhaps you have already guessed the trick.

In fact, a scientific paper has been published with the title “Storks Deliver Babies (p = 0.008).” Without getting too technical, all those zeros tell us that this is not a coincidence. The pattern is easily strong enough to pass a traditional hurdle for publication in an academic journal. More storks, more babies fewer storks, fewer babies. Across Europe, there’s a remarkably strong relationship. Take a look at the estimated population of storks in each country, and then at the number of babies born each year. You know the old story about storks delivering babies? It’s true. The truly genuine problem… does not consist of proving something false but in proving that the authentic object is authentic.

The data detective tim harford