Definition of Statistics: The science of producing unreliable facts from reliable figures.

Evan Esar (1899–1995) was an American humorist and prolific compiler of aphorisms, best known for collections that satirize everyday institutions and professional jargon. This quip appears in the tradition of early-20th-century skepticism about the persuasive power of numbers in politics, advertising, and journalism—an era when statistical reasoning was becoming more visible to the public, but also more easily abused. Esar’s “definition” format is characteristic of his work: a mock-dictionary entry that punctures professional pretensions by highlighting how technical tools can be used to manufacture certainty rather than discover truth.

The joke turns on a paradox: statistics begins with “reliable figures,” yet ends by producing “unreliable facts.” Esar is not attacking mathematics itself so much as the human choices that intervene between data and conclusion—selection bias, misleading aggregation, cherry-picked comparisons, and rhetorical framing. By calling the output “facts,” he underscores how statistical results can acquire an aura of objectivity even when the inference is shaky. The line remains resonant because it captures a perennial tension: quantitative methods can illuminate reality, but they can also be used to launder opinion into apparent certainty when audiences treat numbers as self-authenticating.