Something between 60% and 99% of all statistics are just made up out of thin air. More than 80% of the "research" articles that report the statistic on "just made up" statistics, claim the fraction that is "just made up" is somewhere between 80% and 95%. However, there is still much research to be done in this area, because the various researchers do not agree.

Statistics is an important branch of mathematics. People who use statistics correctly are called "mathematicians", or sometimes "statisticians". People who use statistics, but who are not mathematicians, are usually called "salesmen".

 

Hey, I resemble that last remark!
There is no correct usage of statistics, since anyone can prove anything they want. Want to prove global warming? Just find a petrified tree stump from 3000 years ago...voila! You just proved it!
A statistician is someone who stands with their feet in a bucket of ice and their head in the oven and says "on average, I feel okay!"
Beware of the most insidious..."junk science", especially when in the hands of politicians seeking social (or environmental) change, or worse...lawyers (seeking a class action settlement).

Yogi once said "Baseball is ninety percent mental and the other half is physical"

 

I have nothing against Boston Legal and I'm sure it was great show, even if I never watch it, but that total nonsense report quoted in the show about Hummer having less environmental impact than Prius is a science fiction, actually I'm sorry it's not science fiction, it's a fantasy written by advertising company on the order of GM, to look like scientific paper and it was bad choice on the part of the authors to bring it into the show, IMO, since there are valid arguments against hybrids etc. but not that particular junk.
Now, c'mon Haroldo, statistics, like everything else, could be missused, just like the dynamite (could use it for building roads, or destroying cities), but if done properly, scientific way, statistics is a solid science. The problem with the climate in particular is two fold: it's a very complex interdependent system that we not fully understand. Also we have only one sample data (Earth itself)collected over very short time. But there are few facts that can't be disputed, like for example we are close to double the CO2 in the atmosphere in the past 100 years, mostly because of fossil fuels. We are also releasing other polutions like methane, which can't be good in the long run. My problem is, we really won't know for sure what the effects will be, until after the fact, when it could be too late to fix it. Of course, whatever doomsdayers say will most likely not happen, but at the same saying that oil will last forever and no matter how much we will burn, we'll find new fields, or that all that released polution will not affect us is as unrealistic. And yes, all that warming trend over past 10 to 15 years was all reversed in one year, by smaller solar output, se we are dealing with forces much larger than even our ignorence.