Its more a foreshadowing of Simpson's paradox and a cluster of similarly counterintuitive effects. Statistical evidence that is technically of high quality can cause decision makers to believe the exact opposite of what is true.
> Statistical evidence that is technically of high quality can cause decision makers to believe the exact opposite of what is true
High-quality statistics allow themselves to be inspected. When a statistic is being passed around unadorned, particularly with a call to action, that’s no different from an uncited fact being accepted at face value. (Most of the complexity of statistics is in sampling. Most of the errors in statistical judgment tend to come down to misunderstanding how a sample’s statistics translate to the population you actually care about.)
