Did you know that having a messy room will make you racist? Or that human beings possess the ability to postpone death until after important ceremonial occasions? These 'facts' have been argued with a straight face by researchers and backed up with reams of data and convincing statistics. In Standard Deviations, economics professor Gary Smith walks us through the various tricks and traps that people use to back up their own crackpot theories. Today, data is so plentiful that researchers spend precious little time distinguishing between good, meaningful deductions and total rubbish. Drawing on breakthrough research in behavioural economics by luminaries like Daniel Kahneman and Dan Ariely, and taking to task some of the conclusions of Freakonomics, Standard Deviations exposes the science behind statistics and makes it easy to spot the fraud all around us.