The academic discipline of Statistics is a branch of mathematics that develops and uses techniques for the careful collection, effective presentation, and proper analysis of numerical information. These techniques can be applied to find answers to questions that arise in all areas of human endeavor. Medical researchers use them to test the safety and effectiveness of new drugs, devices and procedures or to appraise the effects of lifestyle changes; nutritionists use them to investigate health claims associated with particular foods or dietary supplements; business executives use them to assess the results of marketing campaigns or the effect of new methods of production on product quality. Economists use them to forecast the business cycle; politicians to predict the outcome of future elections. Spies use them decipher coded messages. The list goes on. No wonder that Statistics has been called a universal guide to the unknown.
Consider, for example, your own health, which is just one among millions of topics that Statistics could address. Every day we meet new health-related stories about prescription and over-the-counter drugs, medical devices and procedures, the lifestyle we should adopt, foods we should favor, and dietary supplements that would surely add years to our lives. Rightly, we dismiss many of these stories as pure snake oil. Mayonnaise prevents Alzheimer’s? Chelation therapy blasts away arterial plaque? Food coloring lowers bad cholesterol? Cinnamon clobbers diabetes? Grapefruit erases breast cancer? Watermelon slashes prostate cancer? Come on! But what about more serious-sounding claims? True enough, reports about ACE inhibitors and beta blockers, Advil and Motrin, 64-slice CT scans and PSA tests, drug-coated stents and the DASH diet appear to be far removed from snake oil, but false claims about any of these may well occur, which makes them snake oil no less than those absurd and fantastic claims about mayonnaise an
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