Pseudostatistics

Style over substance
Pseudoscience

Popular pseudosciences

* Alternative medicine
* Creationism
* Racialism
* Pseudopsychology

Random examples

* Reiki
* Western esotericism
* Baghdad battery
* Art Robinson
* Fasting
* Deadliest Warrior
* Terence McKenna
* Modern Monetary Theory
* Dennis Lee

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[1]

“”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.

## Contents

* 1 Signs of pseudostatistics
* 2 Examples
* 3 See also
* 4 References

## Signs of pseudostatistics[edit]

* Confusion of  correlation with causation
* Cherry-picking of data
* The making of category mistakes
* Low or non-representative sample size
* Selection bias
* Ignorance of any margin of error

## Examples[edit]

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

## See also[edit]

* Bullshit
* Fox News

## References[edit]

1. ↑ "8 obvious signs statistics are lying to you"

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