May Contain Lies

How Stories, Statistics, and Studies Exploit Our Biases—And What We Can Do about It

Alex Edmans

• Publisher: University of California Press
• Year: 2024
• Print ISBN: 9780520405851
• eBook ISBN: 9780520403956
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Social Sciences
• Subtopic: Media & Communications Industry
• Index: Social Sciences

Adam Grant’s “8 New Idea Books to Start Spring”
Next Big Idea Club's Must-Read Books for May 2024
"A wonderful litany of the myriad ways in which we can be deceived, and deceive ourselves."—The Guardian
"Entertaining, thorough and full of current examples. . . . It’s excellent." —The Wall Street Journal

How our biases cause us to fall for misinformation—and how to combat it.

Our lives are minefields of misinformation. It ripples through our social media feeds, our daily headlines, and the pronouncements of politicians, executives, and authors. Stories, statistics, and studies are everywhere, allowing people to find evidence to support whatever position they want. Many of these sources are flawed, yet by playing on our emotions and preying on our biases, they can gain widespread acceptance, warp our views, and distort our decisions.
 
In this eye-opening book, renowned economist Alex Edmans teaches us how to separate fact from fiction. Using colorful examples—from a wellness guru’s tragic but fabricated backstory to the blunders that led to the Deepwater Horizon disaster to the diet that ensnared millions yet hastened its founder’s death—Edmans highlights the biases that cause us to mistake statements for facts, facts for data, data for evidence, and evidence for proof.
 
Armed with the knowledge of what to guard against, he then provides a practical guide to combat this tide of misinformation. Going beyond simply checking the facts and explaining individual statistics, Edmans explores the relationships between statistics—the science of cause and effect—ultimately training us to think smarter, sharper, and more critically. May Contain Lies is an essential read for anyone who wants to make better sense of the world and better decisions.

Table of contents

• Title
• Copyright
• Subvention
• Contents
• Introduction
• Part I: The Biases
• Part II: The Problems
• Part III: The Solutions
• Appendix: A Checklist for Smarter Thinking
• Acknowledgements
• Notes
• Index