What are some good and bad points of statistics?

I am in a class called "Theory of Knowledge" and we analyze different ways of knowing things. My homework was to write a summary on good and bad points of statistics. Good points so far that I have are things like, it is easy to see general trends using the bell curve. ANd bad points are things like, taking the stats out of context, and stuff like that. But, I need some help with more good and bad points.





Any suggestions?

What are some good and bad points of statistics?
Statitics allow us to distill a large number of experiences down to a few simple truths. But the truths may not be important, or they may be misleading and imply that something is true that isn't, or that something is important when it is not. For example, statistics may show that Obama's popularity with voters fell in March. This suggests that something bad is happening to him.. But the fact may be that his lead over his opponent increased three percentage points in February and only two in March, so that in fact, he is more popular than ever and still gaining in popularity, just not as fast.





Or, statistics may show that casualties in Iraq were down in September compared to August suggesting that the war is going better, but then you learn that September was Ramadan, and many Iraqis didn't fight that month, and in fact, that casualties are always less in September than August. Furthermore, you learn that each of the last four Septembers has had more deaths than the one before it, and each of the last four Augusts have been bloodier as well, suggesting that the war is actually getting worse. But then you learn that the number of troops stationed there was doubled this year, and that the increase in the numbers of casualties this year was actual a drop in the percentage of combat troops killed or wounded because twice as many were exposed to battle, but casualties only went up one or two percent. These are typical statistical illusions or tricks.
Reply:Sometimes this information is presented in a manner so as to sway us toward a particular view. As consumers and decision makers we must be aware of this. The obvious problem with this type of reasoning is that these issues can never be proved absolutely. One can never study an example and expect conclusions to hold true for the entire population with absolute certainty. This is exactly why statistics is needed.
Reply:the major good points are a way of knowing if trends are legitimate or spurious (false); a con is that they can be manipulated and used to misrepresent information. Social scientists believe that stats communicate trutth, so they can be used to understand the world... good luck.
Reply:Bad point about statistics is that that it tells you the conclusion without knowing the reasons behind it.





For instance, immigrants who don't speak English and score lower on some test compared to native English speakers doesn't mean that they have a lower intelligence. But statistics might "show" that.
Reply:They can be completely fabricated, they also ignore controversies and assume details.


Try: "Damned Lies and Statistics" (book sample online), type the title into google and take the link: books.google.com
Reply:heres a good bad one.... people could get offended by the statistic...





heres an example..





and this is true..





black people or african americans or whatever is politically correct nowa days... anyways they make up 13% or the american population... but 80% of the american prison population.





sorry.. i dont really have another good one. yours pretty much sums it up lol
Reply:One of the main bad points of statistics is it is very easy to signifigantly scew the answer by changing a word or 2 in the question, or by manipulating your sample. Ie: only sampling from a certain race, or religion, or age group, or region, or organization, etc.