20 Statistics That Seem Like the Math Isn’t Mathing

You know what they say: The only good statistics are dead ones. Wait, no. Something about lies and damned lies. It’s true that a lot of statistics don’t mean what they seem to. The classic example is that murder rates tend to rise with the sale of ice cream. Of course, rocky road has never driven anyone to violence — it’s just that both tend to go up in the summertime. Likewise, you’re more likely to die in a car crash than a plane crash because you spend a lot more time in a car, so maybe light a candle for Taylor Swift tonight.

There are some statistics, though, that might seem to confirm what you’ve always suspected about math being made up just to make you look stupid. When user Careful-Note-5534 asked r/AskReddit, “What are some of the craziest statistics ever?,” they got tons of percentages and comparisons that seem designed to make you throw your phone across the room.