22 statistics that mislead

Statistics can be extremely useful to give you quick facts about useful information. The problem nowadays is that anything can be made up and statistics are no exception. It's very important to make sure that if you choose to quote some statistics in a scholarly paper that you're writing, that you make sure that the statistics are also from a noteworthy source. The other trouble with statistics is when they are used to push a particular agenda. Statistics are wonderful tools to use for those who want to persuade someone to feel a certain way, because seldom do they actually tell the whole story. Often, these stats will be used ton only represent a very specific set of data, but are then used in a very broad fashion to work towards the persuader's agenda. For example, using the issue of police violence from our doc 1, statistics can be gathered in a way that is biased towards the speaker's agenda. Taking a poll of people and asking them "Don't you think that the police are going too far?" will end up in far more "yes" answers than stating the question, "Do you believe that police are adequately handling themselves in confrontations?" It's important to realize where your statistics are coming from and how they were gathered before you choose to believe them.