Books in Brief: Lies, Damn Lies, and Statistics

Lies, Damn Lies, and Statistics, by Michael Wheeler (Liveright, 300 pp., $9.95). Ours is a society mesmerized by rankings.

The soothsayer of yore has been replaced by the public opinion pollster, who stands ready to interpret our every inclination. Gallup, Harris, and Nielsen have become a kind of secular trinity for those in search of the national soul. Politicians and business executives seldom make a move without their counsel, which is to say a great deal about the source of decision-making in America. Such is the disturbing thesis of Mr. Wheeler’s biting study of the pollsters and their capacity to manipulate the very opinion they purport to reflect. Poorly phrased questions, arbitrary random samplings, unscrupulous field workers, and ideological blind spots are just some of the variables that tend to distort any “scientific survey.” Yet so Pavlovian is our dependence upon the process that, when events run counter to the predictions, we suspect the fault must somehow lie within ourselves. Disabusing the reader of this and other myths, Wheeler cautions that polls be viewed with the skepticism they deserve. As the old saw reminds us, “Figures can lie and liars can . . .”

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Alan L. Miller

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Lies, Damn Lies, and Statistics, by Michael Wheeler (Liveright, 300 pp., $9.95). Ours is a society mesmerized by rankings.

The soothsayer of yore has been replaced by the public opinion pollster, who stands ready to interpret our every inclination. Gallup, Harris, and Nielsen have become a kind of secular trinity for those in search of the national soul. Politicians and business executives seldom make a move without their counsel, which is to say a great deal about the source of decision-making in America. Such is the disturbing thesis of Mr. Wheeler’s biting study of the pollsters and their capacity to manipulate the very opinion they purport to reflect. Poorly phrased questions, arbitrary random samplings, unscrupulous field workers, and ideological blind spots are just some of the variables that tend to distort any “scientific survey.” Yet so Pavlovian is our dependence upon the process that, when events run counter to the predictions, we suspect the fault must somehow lie within ourselves. Disabusing the reader of this and other myths, Wheeler cautions that polls be viewed with the skepticism they deserve. As the old saw reminds us, “Figures can lie and liars can . . .”