[MLeake]

Anecdotes may not be statistically significant.

Then again, statistics can be twisted rather easily to support a given viewpoint.

For instance, if gun control advocates want to make a case that possession of a weapon more likely to result in the owner being harmed, they will include suicides in their stats.

This would be fine, but they generally won't make that clear. They'll just say: More gun owners are hurt by their own gun than successfully use them for self defense.

They'll let listeners and readers assume this means that attackers take away guns and use them on gun owners.

So, statistics sometimes don't have any more value than anecdotes. However, statisticians don't want the rest of us to figure this out.

Statistics are useful. However, they aren't really useful unless you know and understand the method used to determine the statistics, and any potential bias of the researcher conducting the study.