“Lies, damned lies, and statistics” is a phrase describing the persuasive power of statistics to bolster weak arguments, “one of the best, and best-known” critiques of applied statistics.[2] It is also sometimes colloquially used to doubt statistics used to prove an opponent’s point.
from wikipedia, which leads me to my question:
what is this critique?
In: 0
A person can take statistics out of context and make them appear to imply something they are not. I’ll give an example from real world history. In the 1950s, Frederic Wertham wrote a book, Seduction of the Innocent, that used interviews with juvenile deliquents to try and prove that because these teenage criminals, homosexuals, and other misfits had all read comics as children, that comics were the cause of their problems.
But, at that time, the overwhelming majority of young people in America grew up reading comics. It was as if he wrote an essay explaining that every child criminal he interviewed had brushed their teeth as a child, therefore brushing teeth lead to criminal behavior.
But, because he was good at taking the statistics he had, and ignoring things like how he had really tiny sample sizes, or removing the context, he was able to create a national movement opposing comic reading by kids, which lead to the adoption of a national censorship board. People saw the data he wanted them to see, the data that pushed his agenda, and he got results.
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