Numerous jokes are associated with statistics and reflected in such caustic definitions as "Statistics is the use of methods to express in precise terms that which one does not know" and "Statistics is the art of going from an unwarranted assumption to a foregone conclusion." Then there is the time-worn remark attributed to the English statesman Benjamin Disraeli (1804–1881): "There are three kinds of lies: lies, damned lies, and statistics."

Statistics may refer to individual data, to complete sets of numbers, or to inferences made about a large population (of people or objects) from a representative sample of the population. The concern here is with inferential statistics. Its methodology is complex and subtle, and the risk of its abuse very real. There is no end in sight for the public being inundated with numbers, by the market and all kinds of...