Pseudostatistics

Style over substance Pseudoscience

Popular pseudosciences

Alternative medicine Creationism Racialism Pseudopsychology

Random examples

Bumblebee argument Binaural beats F. W. H. Myers Baby reading Forks Over Knives Randell Mills Mehran Keshe Parents Against Underage Smartphones Bates eye method v - t - e

“”It's like ripping the shiniest part out of a Lamborghini engine and claiming you have the ability to sprint at 300 kilometers per hour.

—Cracked

“”Lies, damned lies, and statistics

—Benjamin Disraeli, or Mark Twain, depending on your preferences

Pseudostatistics is the use of statistical language, calculations, and numbers to reinforce an argument when the actual statistics used are inappropriate, misapplied, miscalculated, or even completely made up. Pseudostatistics can take many forms, ranging from the obvious "95 percent of all people" clichés that get dropped in random bar conversations, to complex and subtle misapplications in purportedly scientific works. Many forms of pseudoscience, woo, and denialism use pseudostatistics to bamboozle their audience into accepting otherwise obviously flawed arguments and logical fallacies.

Signs of pseudostatistics

• Confuses correlation with causation
• Cherry-picks data
• Makes category mistakes
• low or non-representative sample size
• Selection bias
• Ignores margin of error
• Attempts to measure something

Examples

• Andrew Schlafly loves making nonsense statistics so stupid its almost unbelievable.

See also

• Bullshit
• Fox News

References

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