Chapter 3 - Different Ways of Manipulating

Summary

In this second historical chapter we look at the origins of the word ‘manipulation’ in English. We start with two different meanings of the word ‘manipulation’ being used today in the context of statistics. Two of the examples imply that the manipulation of statistics is something negative. The third use, by a senior figure in British statistics, implies that manipulation is positive. The word originally had a positive meaning, before the meaning of devious or underhand dealing developed. Michael Faraday did much to promote the positive scientific meaning of ‘manipulation’ and the first use of ‘statistical manipulation’ was in the positive sense by a follower of Quetelet. Slowly the negative sense of the word has spread widely. In this chapter we make a distinction between manipulating information and manipulating people in the negative sense. They involve different sorts of action, both of which will be involved in episodes when powerful politicians manipulate statisticians to manipulate statistical information for them. We show how scientists have manipulated statistics in the bad sense. If scientists do this, then it is expected that politicians will also do so.