Mark Twain once said, “There are three kinds of lies: lies, damned lies, and statistics.” Â Despite this obvious observation, our society focuses so mightily on statistics, you’d think we revere them as if they’re stone cold facts. Â Commercials that tell you “Three out of four dentists recommend Crest.” Â ”Lysol kills 99.9% of germs.” Â Studies show “2-5 cups of coffee a day keeps Alzheimers away.” Â ”Drinking 1-2 glasses of red wine prevent xyz”
I’m sorry. Â This is all bullshit. Â The “dentists”, or whatever professional they choose, is never mentioned. Â There’s no control. Â It could have been, “Three out of four dentists [who we found while speaking at a Proctor and Gamble board meeting] recommend Crest.” Â The Lysol guys: Â ”Lysol kills 99.9% of the germs [that we placed on a smooth, non-porous surface, and chose carefully to make sure it wasn't one of those resistant guys].” Â And as for the studies: Â Correlation without Causation!!! Â Seriously! Â What’s the control group? Â More importantly, what other aspects of these participants lives have you ruled out? Â People aren’t all built the same.
It’s one thing to go off and explain that a certain percentage of participants of SOMETHING had something happen to them while doing something. Â That’s pretty solid, like “40% of study participants yelled ‘fuck!’ when they hit their thumb with a hammer. Â The other 60% were dead to begin with.” Â But it’s another thing to go and say, “Drinking 2-5 cups of coffee a day reduces the risk of getting Alzheimer’s Disease by 26%.” Â Are you serious? Â So the control group must have been a large group of people who don’t drink coffee. Â What did they drink instead? Â And what did the participants who drink coffee do after they drank their coffee? Â More importantly, how do you determine the risk factor in the first place?
There are more holes in these studies than a bad porno flick.
