cherry picking......................

 

When any statistic can be recruited to support your preferred theory, you are suffering from confirmation bias. Scientists like to boast that they strive to prove themselves wrong, that following the philosopher Karl Popper they know falsification is the essence of science. Nonsense. Like prosecutors determined to find a suspect guilty, they usually seek out evidence that bolsters, rather than challenges, their pet ideas. In this they are only human.

As the philosopher Francis Bacon noted in 1620: “And such is the way of all superstition, whether in astrology, dreams, omens, divine judgments, or the like; wherein men, having a delight in such vanities, mark the events where they are fulfilled, but where they fail, though this happen much oftener, neglect and pass them by."

-Matt Ridley, from this substack

thanks chris