“despite its mathematical base, statistics is as much an art as it is a science.
… Often the statistician must choose among methods,
a subjective process,
and find the one that he will use to represent the facts.
This suggests giving statistical material …
a very sharp second look before accepting any of them. …
But arbitrarily rejecting statistical methods makes no sense either.
That is like refusing to read because writers sometimes
use words to hide facts and relationships
rather than to reveal them.”
- Darrell Huff,
How To Lie With Statistics, 1954
“No doubt some graphics do distort the underlying data,
making it hard for the viewer to learn the truth.
But data graphics are no different from words in this regard,
for any means of communication can be used to deceive.”
- Edward Tufte,
The Visual Display of Quantitative Information
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