Question

Answer/Discussion the following in an APA format

There are many uses and abuses of statistics. The usefulness tends to be obvious but the abuses are often not always so obvious. Did you know that 90% of all statistics are made up? Did you know that 85% of all medication works 95% of the time? What do those statements even mean???

Charles Siefe gives a wonderful and funny talk on the abuses. Watch the video:  Proofiness: the Dark Art of Mathematical Deception and let's discuss some of these abuses. What was your favorite abuse? There are many other statistical abuses which we see more commonly in every day life. Draw some connections with statistical abuse and life, and let's discuss our ideas!

Answer 1

Question asked:

What was your favorite abuse? Draw some connections with statistical abuse and life

Spurious correlation between two variables x and y due to presence of confounding variable z.

EXAMPLE:
A study has found a strong positive correlation between an increase in car accidents (Variable x) in the State of New York in the month of June and increase in bear attacks (Variable y) in the State of New York in the month of June.

A deep analysis on this spurious correlation will reveal that it is due to the Confounding variable: z = increased population, due to high tourism season in the month of June,