I've managed to get a significant proportion of this book written without embarking on statistics. This was intentional, as I appreciate that biologists generally “switch off” at its mention. However, we now have to bite the bullet. Statistics languish under many guises, and many people are instinctively sceptical particularly of the type generated by the advertising trade, which may boast that 8 out of 10 highly respected and influential individuals use ANED. The inference is that you too, who are probably not as highly respected or influential as the worthy characters in the advert, should use ANED so that you may become more highly respected and influential. We should ask just two questions. First, why do the manufacturers need to waste their money on advertising if 8 out of 10 of all people use the product, which begs the second question: 8 out of 10 of which people? The answer, of course, is that very few of the total number of people use ANED, so the manufacturers need to boost sales to satisfy the share-holders by increasing profits. The advertisers are very careful these days not to be seen perpetrating a blatant untruth, and so carefully target their research to the most likely users of ANED before they do the survey. It is true that 8 out of the 10 people they interviewed use ANED, but these people were not selected at random.