What's it about? The Data Detective (2021) is a smart, practical guide to understanding the ways in which statistics –⁠ and our reactions to them –⁠ distort and obscure reality. Using psychological research and illuminating examples, it reveals some of the ways our brains influence how we see data and statistics and how we draw incorrect conclusions as a result. By picking apart our cognitive biases and misconceptions, we gain the ability to see data, and in turn, the world, for what it really is. Did you know that storks deliver babies? Statistics prove it: In countries with higher stork populations, more babies are born than in countries with low stork populations. This, of course, isn’t true –⁠ storks don’t deliver babies. But it’s very easy to make it seem like they do, using faulty statistical arguments. The ease of lying with statistics has made many people understandably leery of them. The trouble is that without statistics, we’d never have discovered that cigarette smokin...