Lies, damned lies, and statistics

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This well-known saying is part of a phrase attributed to Benjamin Disraeli and popularized in the U.S. by Mark Twain: There are three kinds of lies: lies, damn lies, and statistics. The semi-ironic statement refers to the persuasive power of numbers, and succinctly describes how even accurate statistics can be used to bolster inaccurate arguments.

Recent research indicates that neither Disraeli nor Twain actually coined the phrase. Alternative attributions include the radical journalist and politician Henry Du Pré Labouchère (1831-1912), and Leonard H. Courtney, who used the phrase in 1895 and two years later became the president of the Royal Statistical Society. There is some doubt, however, as to what Courtney intended the phrase to mean. [1]

Recently however, attention has been drawn to a use of the phrase in 1892 by Mrs Andrew Crosse Cornelia Augusta Hewitt Crosse (1827-1895). In 1894 a doctor called M Price read a paper to the Philadelphia County Medical Society ^{[citation needed]} in which he referred to "the proverbial kinds of falsehoods, 'lies, damned lies, and statistics.'" The fact that he referred to the phrase as "proverbial" seems to imply that he thought it familiar at that time. The phrase has also been attributed to [William] Abraham Hewitt (1875-1966), and Commander Holloway Halstead Frost (1889-1935). Since the phrase was current by 1892, Frost can be eliminated and Hewitt must be very unlikely indeed.

reference: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lies,_damned_lies,_and_statistics