People will often quote statistics to prove a point that they are trying to make. The problem with that is related to the fact that there are a lot of variables to any statistic. Without knowing those variables, you may be trying to support things that are actually not factual. The human mind tends to believe what it wants to believe even if it is wrong.
Several years ago, I wrote an article about the misleading facts related to the advertised drug Prevagen. One of the main statistics of the article was the high percentage of pharmacists that recommended it. The problem was that those pharmacists who recommended it were hired by the company specifically to recommend it.
There is a very old article that I read in college that supports the fact that statistics taken out of context can be misleading. The title of the article was “Pickles will kill you.” They offered a lot of examples to prove that.
For example, anyone who was born before 1900 who later ate pickles has now died. Thus the mortality rate is 100 percent. Over 99 percent of individuals involved in auto accidents have recently eaten pickles. Therefore, pickles cause auto accidents. Almost all people who get sick have eaten pickles throughout their lives. Therefore, the effects add up over time. These all fall into the category of overgeneralization.
These facts are silly. However, they are not a lot different than the ones we see on an every day basis. The bottom line is that numbers themselves are meaningless without the overall picture to support them.
There are many ways to misuse statistics. One of the most common ones is related to justification bias. Things that do not match our way of thinking are discarded. This happened early on when cigarette companies were shown statistics that their product was killing people. They chose to ignore it.
Another way is to ask questions to get the answer you desire. For example when asked about a war, the question can be posed different ways. If one asks “Do you support the U.S. need to support democracy around the world?”, the most common answer will likely be yes. If the question is phrased “Do you support the U.S invading neutral companies to support democracy there?” the most common answer will likely be no. Thus depending on how you ask the question, you are more likely to get the statistics you want.
One common error in the medical field is providing reports with too few patients examined. That was the reason, I chose to not use any new ADHD medication until it had been in general use for one year. The study population was always small. Therefore, a rare side effect might not be obvious until the medication was in more frequent use.
Fudging the data is the term used when data are intentionally changed to support a position. There is an ad that plays on my scrabble app for a game called Vita Mahjong. It states that 86 percent of seniors play the game. I would bet that 86 percent of them have never heard of the game.
There are many other errors that exist around data. That is one of the reasons we should always question something that does not seem to make sense. If we do not, then we will go around believing that pickles will kill you.