" the great statistician Frederick Mosteller had a point when he said, “It is easy to lie with statistics, but it is easier to lie without them.” Nevertheless, there are some steps you can take to, as Huff put it, “talk back to a statistic.” Among the biggies recommended by many scientists is to ask a simple question: Does the figure, finding, or correlation make sense, that is, accord with what you know of objective reality? "

― Natalie Angier , The Canon: A Whirligig Tour of the Beautiful Basics of Science