April 15, Tax Day, is but a single day, but even after it has come and gone Americans will still be working to pay 2008 income taxes. Ronald Reagan defined a taxpayer as, "someone who works for the federal government but doesn't have to take the civil service examination." This year April 23 is the official date set by The Tax Foundation when the average American will have earned enough money to pay his total tax bill for the year 2008. The Tax Foundation has a chart and other information that shows how they calculate Tax Freedom Day and how this year compares with previous years. One hundred years ago, we’d have reached Tax Freedom Day in January. You can also find out the Tax Freedom Day for your state.
For our readers in Canada Tax Freedom Day has yet to be computed. Last year the date was June 20, 2007. Visit the Fraser Institute for more information on Canada's Tax Freedom Day and to use their Personal Tax Freedom Day Calculator. The United Kingdom's Tax Freedom Day is calculated by the Adam Smith Institute to fall on June 2 this year. For more information, visit their Tax Freedom Day pages.
All these websites offer information and statistics about our taxes. This is an election year and politicians are going to be telling us all kinds of things about tax cuts. Some are for 'em. Some are ag'nst 'em. Either way it behooves us to inform ourselves and teach our children how to negotiate through all the statistics thrown at us and to know when someone is making a valid argument. To that end, we've created this short list of useful resources. Enjoy.
Websites
Curriculum and Books
Asking the Right Questions: A Guide to Critical Thinking (8th Edition)
by Neil Browne, Stuart Keeley
This highly popular text helps students to bridge the gap between simply memorizing or blindly accepting information and the greater challenge of critical analysis and synthesis. It teaches them to respond to alternative points of view and develop a solid foundation for making personal choices about what to accept and what to reject.
While the structure of this new edition remains the same, for the sake of currency and relevance about two-thirds of the practice passages are new, as well as many of the longer illustrations and the final critical thinking case. Also, this eighth edition has been revised to emphasize the positive value of critical thinking as a means to autonomy, curiosity, reasonableness, openness, and better decisions.
Companion Website
The Fallacy Detective
by Nathaniel Bluedorn, Hans Bluedorn
“This book is for fallacy detectives. We’ve designed this book to be a handy-dandy text for learning to spot the errors in thinking that you meet everyday on the street, in the newspaper, or on television – or errors you make yourself.” Nathaniel Bluedorn
Damned Lies and Statistics: Untangling Numbers from the Media, Politicians, and Activists
by Joel Best
Does the number of children gunned down double each year? Does anorexia kill 150,000 young women annually? Do white males account for only a sixth of new workers? Startling statistics shape our thinking about social issues. But all too often, these numbers are wrong. This book is a lively guide to spotting bad statistics and learning to think critically about these influential numbers. Damned Lies and Statistics is essential reading for everyone who reads or listens to the news, for students, and for anyone who relies on statistical information to understand social problems.
Joel Best bases his discussion on a wide assortment of intriguing contemporary issues that have garnered much recent media attention, including abortion, cyberporn, homelessness, the Million Man March, teen suicide, the U.S. census, and much more. Using examples from the New York Times, the Washington Post, and other major newspapers and television programs, he unravels many fascinating examples of the use, misuse, and abuse of statistical information.
In this book Best shows us exactly how and why bad statistics emerge, spread, and come to shape policy debates. He recommends specific ways to detect bad statistics, and shows how to think more critically about "stat wars," or disputes over social statistics among various experts. Understanding this book does not require sophisticated mathematical knowledge; Best discusses the most basic and most easily understood forms of statistics, such as percentages, averages, and rates.
This accessible book provides an alternative to either naively accepting the statistics we hear or cynically assuming that all numbers are meaningless. It shows how anyone can become a more intelligent, critical, and empowered consumer of the statistics that inundate both the social sciences and our media-saturated lives.
How to Lie With Statistics
by Darrell Huff
"There is terror in numbers," writes Darrell Huff in How to Lie with Statistics. And nowhere does this terror translate to blind acceptance of authority more than in the slippery world of averages, correlations, graphs, and trends. Huff sought to break through "the daze that follows the collision of statistics with the human mind" with this slim volume, first published in 1954. The book remains relevant as a wake-up call for people unaccustomed to examining the endless flow of numbers pouring from Wall Street, Madison Avenue, and everywhere else someone has an axe to grind, a point to prove, or a product to sell. "The secret language of statistics, so appealing in a fact-minded culture, is employed to sensationalize, inflate, confuse, and oversimplify," warns Huff.
Although many of the examples used in the book are charmingly dated, the cautions are timeless. Statistics are rife with opportunities for misuse, from "gee-whiz graphs" that add nonexistent drama to trends, to "results" detached from their method and meaning, to statistics' ultimate bugaboo--faulty cause-and-effect reasoning. Huff's tone is tolerant and amused, but no-nonsense. Like a lecturing father, he expects you to learn something useful from the book, and start applying it every day. Never be a sucker again, he cries!
Even if you can't find a source of demonstrable bias, allow yourself some degree of skepticism about the results as long as there is a possibility of bias somewhere. There always is.
Read How to Lie with Statistics. Whether you encounter statistics at work, at school, or in advertising, you'll remember its simple lessons. Don't be terrorized by numbers, Huff implores. "The fact is that, despite its mathematical base, statistics is as much an art as it is a science." --Therese Littleton, Amazon.com
Statistics for People Who (Think They) Hate Statistics
by Neil J. Salkind
This text teaches an often intimidating and difficult subject in a way that is informative, personable, and clear. Author Neil J. Salkind takes students through various statistical procedures, beginning with correlation and graphical representation of data and ending with inferential techniques and analysis of variance. In addition, the text covers SPSS, and includes reviews of more advanced techniques, such as reliability, validity, introductory non-parametric statistics, and more. Pedagogical features include sidebars offering additional technical information about the topics presented and points that reinforce major themes in the book. This new edition also includes more examples than ever before, an expanded set of exercises at the end of each chapter, and a more comprehensive glossary.
Visit EHO Lite
