http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lies,_damned_lies,_and_statistics wrote:
<<"Lies, damned lies, and statistics" is a phrase describing the persuasive power of numbers, particularly the use of statistics to bolster weak arguments. It is also sometimes colloquially used to doubt statistics used to prove an opponent's point. Mark Twain popularized the saying in "Chapters from My Autobiography", published in the North American Review in 1906. "Figures often beguile me," he wrote, "particularly when I have the arranging of them myself; in which case the remark attributed to Disraeli would often apply with justice and force: '
There are three kinds of lies: lies, damned lies, and statistics.'" However, the phrase is not found in any of Disraeli's works and the earliest known appearances were years after his death.
The earliest instance of the phrase found in print dates to a letter written June 8, 1891, published June 13, 1891: "
Sir,--It has been wittily remarked that there are three kinds of falsehood: the first is a 'fib,' the second is a downright lie, and the third and most aggravated is statistics. It is on statistics and on the absence of statistics that the advocate of national pensions relies....." Later, in October 1891, as a query in Notes and Queries, the pseudonymous questioner, signing as "St Swithin", asked for the originator of the phrase, indicating common usage even at that date. The pseudonym has been attributed to Eliza Gutch.
The phrase, as noted by Robert Giffen in 1892, was a variation on a phrase about three types of unreliable witnesses, a liar, a damned liar, and an expert: "
An old jest runs to the effect that there are three degrees of comparison among liars. There are liars, there are outrageous liars, and there are scientific experts. This has lately been adapted to throw dirt upon statistics. There are three degrees of comparison, it is said, in lying. There are lies, there are outrageous lies, and there are statistics."
That phrase can be found in Nature in 1885, page 74 Nov 26, 1885: :"
A well-known lawyer, now a judge, once grouped witnesses into three classes: simple liars, damned liars, and experts." A minute of the X Club meeting held on 5 December 1885, recorded by Thomas Henry Huxley, noted "
Talked politics, scandal, and the three classes of witnesses—liars, d—d liars, and experts." Quoted in 1900 in Leonard Huxley's The Life and Letters of Thomas Henry Huxley.
