Definition of Statistics: The science of producing unreliable

Host: The night hummed with neon static, the city outside pulsing like a restless organism—half machine, half dream. Inside a dim bar, the air was thick with the smell of old bourbon, cigarette smoke, and unspoken truths. Jack sat at the far end of the counter, a whiskey glass sweating in his hand, his face lit by the blue glow of a muted news screen replaying another set of statistics—numbers rising, numbers falling, graphs pretending to tell the story of the world.

Host: Jeeny sat beside him, tracing a circle on the bar’s wooden surface with her finger, the gesture slow and deliberate, like someone thinking in silence before speaking. The bartender moved like a ghost, the faint clink of ice the only punctuation in the heavy quiet.

Host: Then, with a wry smile, Jeeny finally broke it.

Jeeny: reading from her phone “‘Definition of Statistics: The science of producing unreliable facts from reliable figures.’ —Evan Esar.”

Jack: chuckles darkly “Now that’s the most honest definition I’ve ever heard. I’d frame it and hang it in every government office.”

Jeeny: “You would. You don’t trust numbers unless they bleed.”

Jack: “Numbers don’t bleed, Jeeny. That’s the problem. They’re clean. Sanitized. You can hide anything behind them—wars, lies, profits, pandemics.”

Jeeny: “Maybe that’s not the fault of the numbers. Maybe it’s the fault of the people who use them.”

Jack: “And who’s left to tell the difference?”

Host: The TV screen above them flickered—bar charts, percentages, polling figures—a dance of certainty wearing a mask of reason. The light fell across Jack’s face, sharpening his features, catching the faint silver in his eyes.

Jeeny: “You sound like a man who’s been betrayed by a spreadsheet.”

Jack: “Worse. I’ve seen truth buried under one.”

Jeeny: smiling faintly “Go on, philosopher. Tell me how numbers lie.”

Jack: “They don’t lie by themselves. They just… mislead politely. Like saying unemployment’s down without mentioning the jobs don’t pay enough to eat. Or that crime rates dropped because people stopped reporting what they’ve stopped believing will be solved.”

Jeeny: “So statistics are mirrors, then. They show what’s real—but only at the right angle.”

Jack: “No, they’re smoke. Mirrors at least reflect something.”

Host: The bar lights dimmed a little, the murmur of patrons fading as if even the walls wanted to listen. Outside, rain began its slow drizzle, blurring the city lights into watercolor streaks.

Jeeny: “You think you’re being clever, but statistics are just tools, Jack. Like language, or money. They reveal our patterns—the way we move, consume, fail. They help us understand what’s too big for intuition.”

Jack: “Or they make us think we understand. That’s the trick. Numbers comfort us. They say, the world is measurable, predictable, rational. But it isn’t. Try counting grief. Try quantifying hope.”

Jeeny: “That’s not what statistics are for.”

Jack: “Then they’re not for life.”

Jeeny: “No—they’re for learning.”

Host: The rain outside picked up, drumming on the windowpane in sync with the low jazz track humming from the old speaker. Jack’s fingers tapped against his glass, rhythmic, impatient.

Jack: “You really believe knowledge can come from numbers?”

Jeeny: “Of course. Patterns teach. The numbers themselves don’t matter—it’s what you see inside them that does. The way a good architect looks past the blueprint and sees the home.”

Jack: “You sound like a statistician with a soul. Dangerous combination.”

Jeeny: “And you sound like a cynic who forgot that every revolution started with a count—one injustice, two witnesses, a million voices.”

Jack: half-smiling “Or one person fudging the numbers.”

Jeeny: “You can’t blame the compass when the explorer’s dishonest.”

Host: The light shifted, catching the amber glow of her drink. She looked at him—calm, steady, the kind of gaze that disarms even truth’s sharpest corners.

Jack: “You know, once during the crash of ’08, I watched an analyst explain that ‘losses were within statistical expectation.’ He said it like he was reading the weather. Millions of people lost everything, but statistically, it made sense.”

Jeeny: “That’s not the failure of math, Jack. That’s the failure of empathy. Statistics explain behavior—they don’t justify it.”

Jack: “Tell that to the systems built on them. Every algorithm, every policy, every decision reduced to a probability. A probability doesn’t care about the one in a hundred who falls through the cracks.”

Jeeny: “Maybe it’s not about caring. Maybe it’s about clarity. Numbers show the cracks—we just choose to look away.”

Jack: “And wrap the data in pretty words like margin of error.”

Jeeny: softly “Error is just another name for humanity.”

Host: The silence that followed was deep—almost sacred. The rain outside now poured in full measure, the windows trembling with its rhythm. The bartender turned off the television, and for the first time that night, the bar felt unmeasured, uncounted—alive.

Jack: “Maybe that’s what Esar meant. We build this science to make truth feel safe. We turn people into figures so the facts can’t hurt us. But in doing so, we strip them of their story.”

Jeeny: “And yet, the story hides inside the numbers if you know how to read them. Statistics are like poetry—they need interpretation.”

Jack: “Poetry? Come on, Jeeny. You can’t compare regression analysis to Neruda.”

Jeeny: “Why not? Both start with data—one emotional, one numerical—and both fail beautifully when they try to explain the unexplainable.”

Host: Her words landed softly but stayed, like the aftertaste of smoke or truth. Jack’s expression shifted; his usual defiance flickered with something smaller—wonder, maybe.

Jack: “You really believe beauty can exist in numbers?”

Jeeny: “Absolutely. Think of Fibonacci spirals in shells, or the geometry of galaxies. Even chaos has symmetry if you step back far enough. Numbers are just the language of God whispering through patterns.”

Jack: “And statistics?”

Jeeny: “Statistics is how we try to whisper back.”

Host: He didn’t speak for a while. The rain softened, the city quieted, and the bar felt suspended—caught between cynicism and faith.

Jack: “So maybe the trick isn’t distrusting numbers—but distrusting ourselves.”

Jeeny: “Exactly. Because the moment we want a number to prove us right, it’s already lying for us.”

Jack: smiles faintly “You know, that might be the first thing we agree on tonight.”

Jeeny: “See? Even conversation has its own statistics. Given enough arguments, we eventually find common ground.”

Jack: “And the margin of error?”

Jeeny: grinning “Humanity.”

Host: The light above them flickered once, then steadied, casting a soft gold sheen across their faces. Jack lifted his glass slightly in her direction, a small, ironic toast to something bigger than either of them.

Jack: “To unreliable facts and reliable figures.”

Jeeny: “To the beautiful lie that still teaches the truth.”

Host: Their glasses clinked, soft and deliberate, echoing faintly in the nearly empty bar. Outside, the rain stopped, leaving behind a sky washed clean, the city’s lights reflected in perfect, mathematical symmetry on the wet streets below.

Host: And for a brief, quiet moment, the world felt measured—not in numbers or logic, but in the delicate arithmetic of two people learning how to understand without needing to calculate.