Nine Ways People Lie With Statistics And Never Get Caught

Nine Ways People Lie With Statistics Without Faking a Single Number

Read Any Chart Like a Detective, Nine Statistics Tricks Made Easy

A chart caught mid-escape on stilts, and the one student with a magnifying glass who noticed the floor was missing.

For years, British TV told you that more than 80% of dentists recommend Colgate. You probably pictured a big room of dentists, eight out of ten raising their hands for one toothpaste, two grumbling in the corner.

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That room never existed. In 2007 the UK advertising watchdog looked at the survey behind the claim, and found that dentists had been allowed to name as many toothpastes as they liked.

Most named several. A rival brand got named almost as often as Colgate. So the 80% was real, but the picture in your head, eight dentists choosing Colgate over everything else, was not.

The toothpaste claim that was banned in the UK in 2007, built on a survey where dentists could pick more than one brand.

When people can tick every box, the percentages stop adding up to 100. Watch ten made-up dentists fill in a “pick all that apply” form.