From that cascade of colorful bars at the side of your favorite magazine to the confusion you face upon realizing the worst toothpaste you ever used was recommended by 100% of dentists. Statistics seemingly embody opinions of the masses even though they may be so different from your own. They shape your life in ways you don’t understand like every time your brain redirects your hand to the yogurt she ate because it was recommended by 3/4 dieticians. Buying the juice that went into your cart with the same catchy jingle they played sung by licensed pediatricians. From subconsciously convincing to physically deceiving statistics are tailored by professionals to turn your impartial to an obsessional with their product. However, not all statistics are deceiving, they can be used for many crucial aspects of your life and can help you a lot when planning ahead based on previous statistic- recorded evidence. An article on http://www.truthpizza.org/logic/stats.htm, called Misleading Statistics speaks to many problems with statistics and how they effect us. Faulty statistics often jump at you with numbers that may sway your opinion and are often not even mathematically correct, demonstrated by this tricky quote,
86% of statistics are made up on the spot you know- the remaining 24% are mathematically flawed." - internet message board
if you caught the simple flaw congratulations although it is confusing and represents the simple way that statistics can trick your conscience into trusting false information. Unbalanced ratios may also impact statistics when they only did interview four dentists and their opinions are not representative to all dentists. Unfair questions are often used in surveys to bias or sway opinions of the survey takers. Excluding information is often used when you ignore certain data or jump in time and alters the result. Percentages plays a major role in statistics as 10% of 10 people is only one person but 10% and not giving the total number of people will be seen as more drastic. Overall, analyzing and divulging into statistics that you are presented with and doing background research you must make sense and understand, taking your own view based on the accurate, and all the statistics collected. Making sure they are unbiased, well researched, and well sampled.