When I was a small child, there was a kind of test we used to do on each other. You’d pick a buttercup, place it close underneath your friend’s chin, so as to catch the daylight; and if there was a yellow patch of light on your friend’s chin, it meant they liked butter.
The test was almost always accurate. But think about it this way;- if 9 out of 10 children like butter and 90% of children get the yellow patch of light on their chin, even if the relationship between the two is completely random, you will get a correct test 82% of the time and a misleading test 18% of the time.
Statistics are wonderful, but you have to know, and care, how to use them. Scientists take a great deal of care over this kind of thing, but not everyone is so careful, or knowledgeable.
Also, the whole process of doing the buttercup test is fraught with opportunities for bias.
Anyway, just a bit of fun.
God of creation,
as you call your people
to be honest and just;
so give us grace to be
honest and fair with numbers:
help us resist the temptation
to skew them in our favour,
or to speak without understanding.