Numbers don&#x27;t lie.  We lie as we try to make sense of the numbers and format them for display.  At least when you have actual numbers underneath someone else can look and try to confirm or refute the prior presentation,or look for an entirely new meaning.  Anecdote and popular sentiment to not allow this.<p>It&#x27;s not that having numbers means they can&#x27;t be massaged to tell a specific story, but at least there&#x27;s more than blind luck that goes into whether the conclusion makes sense.