The misuse of statistics can literally make the difference between life and death.

One example? There’s a guy named Stephen Jay Gould who suffered from a rare form of cancer. The median mortality rate after discovering this form of cancer is 8 months.

What did he think when he learned that? Many people would translate that as meaning that he should expect to live 8 months, but fortunately he didn’t have that perspective.

Attitude and hope are critical aspects to fighting cancer, and when people expect to live 8 months, they usually do. But Gould understood that the median meant that 50% of the population lived longer than 8 months. He did some more research and found out that there were a few people who lived years beyond the median. Because of this, he kept up his hopes and lived for 20 more years.

The statistician’s lesson? The median and mean often don’t tell the whole story. Sometimes those 20 year outliers are just as important, especially if they inspire hope for others.

Yes, I realize that I reduced this heart-warming story to a lesson about statistics. I also realize I’m on spring break right now. But if you’re just as geeky as me, you can read a little more about this here.