[DoreenMichele]

There is an excellent book on such things that I highly recommend: How to lie with statistics

Problems like this are part of why we have sayings like:

Measure twice, cut once.

GIGO (Garbage in, garbage out)

Some saying about measuring to extreme precision, then "cutting with an axe."

[bcheung]

> Measure twice, cut once.

I always thought that had to do with carpentry and woodworking, not statistics.

[DoreenMichele]

Same problem space to my mind: applying math to the real world in some meaningful, useful fashion.