# Lies, Damn Lies and Statistics

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lies-damn-lies-and-statistics/689954>\
**Category:** Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share\
**Created:** [June 3, 2014, 7:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lies-damn-lies-and-statistics/689954 "2014-06-03T19:35:04Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 4\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![Inna\_Minnit](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/5f8ce5/32.png) [@Inna\_Minnit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Inna_Minnit)\
**Post date:** [June 3, 2014, 7:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lies-damn-lies-and-statistics/689954/1 "2014-06-03T19:35:04Z")

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We live in a sound-bite, twitter, world. I was driving and listening to the radio do it’s top of the hour summary. Verbatim, this is what was said: “15% of Americans have the norovirus due to poor catering practices.”

WTF does that even mean?

I often read, or hear, stories where statistics are trotted out as if they mean something, or are proving a point.

Since we know that 97.23 % of statistics are made up on the spot, what statistics have you heard trotted out that leave you confused?

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**Author:** ![An\_Gadai](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/d6d6ee/32.png) [@An\_Gadai](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/An_Gadai)\
**Post date:** [June 3, 2014, 8:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lies-damn-lies-and-statistics/689954/2 "2014-06-03T20:04:55Z")

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73% of 97 women agree.

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**Author:** ![thelurkinghorror](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/7c8e57/32.png) [@thelurkinghorror](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/thelurkinghorror)\
**Post date:** [June 4, 2014, 2:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lies-damn-lies-and-statistics/689954/3 "2014-06-04T02:25:23Z")

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Studies made up by me, but similar to ones I have heard (since I can’t remember many).

Confounds: “vaccines cause autism” doesn’t work if the non-vaccinated kids are that way for a reason, like they live in areas with no vaccination access (pretend here that autism isn’t associated with mostly affluent people).

Confusing correlation and causation: “dry counties have fewer deaths due to auto accident” or they could just be rural.  
or a common cause (& confound):“chewing tobacco associated with steroid use” yes, if they’re all baseball players.

False dichotomy: “68% of Americans don’t believe in teaching evolution” when a good portion of those polled were in a third group, people who have no problem teaching both evolution and creation/ID. You can also easily influence responses by framing the questions a certain way. E.g. “evolution occurred without God” may be objectionable for some, yet the same people would have no problem with “current species are descended from a common ancestor and species are created by selection.” That doesn’t imply that they believe God is constantly mucking around with species (ID).

Poor definition of variables: “playing violent video games causes kids to look at pictures of weapons for longer than non-violent games, therefore violent games make them more aggressive.” A famous one on this is willingness to put hot sauce in someones’ drink = aggression.

One I saw today. Admittedly, the reporting may misinterpret it, but I’ve skimmed the paper and that appears to be some of their point. But it seems your methodology better be **solid** if you’re going to claim that [Female-named hurricanes kill more than male hurricanes because people don’t respect them](http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/capital-weather-gang/wp/2014/06/02/female-named-hurricanes-kill-more-than-male-because-people-dont-respect-them-study-finds/?Post+generic=%3Ftid%3Dsm_twitter_washingtonpost). See also, [the link at the bottom with questions](http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/capital-weather-gang/wp/2014/06/03/disbelief-shock-and-skepticism-hurricane-gender-study-faces-blowback/). If the exact opposite result were found, I could come up with a cromulent-sounding but still made up explanation of why it’s _still_ sexist.

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**Author:** ![armedmonkey](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/d6d6ee/32.png) [@armedmonkey](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/armedmonkey)\
**Post date:** [June 4, 2014, 5:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lies-damn-lies-and-statistics/689954/4 "2014-06-04T05:49:16Z")

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> [@Inna\_Minnit](#):
>
> We live in a sound-bite, twitter, world. I was driving and listening to the radio do it’s top of the hour summary. Verbatim, this is what was said: “15% of Americans have the norovirus due to poor catering practices.”
> 
> WTF does that even mean?

I don’t know why this one throws you. [Norovirus](http://www.cdc.gov/vitalsigns/norovirus/index.html) is the most common food borne illness in the U.S. It is contracted from improperly prepared food, i.e. “poor catering practices”, and the CDC says that 70% of cases are traceable to food service workers. Additionally, some cases are are sub-clinical, meaning that you may have the virus without showing symptoms.

What the stat means is that 15 % of Americans are walking around with this virus in their bodies because the kid behind the counter at Burger King didn’t wash his hands.