Can you point me in the right direction of a real-life example of how estiamates can be unreliable/deceiving?

Question

In my stats class, we're looking at estimates, internal estimations of population mean, confidence interval, etc. I'd like to find a real life example on the net that will show how estimates can be unreliable. Any thoughts?

Answer 1

The amount of medicine you should take each day to relieve sicknesses (it can sometimes be fatal if guessed), in crime the number of criminals cannot be assumed they must be proven :)

Answer 2

Improper confidence in the results of drug testing is a good example. The rarer the condition for which you're testing, the higher the percentage of positive results will be false positives. When the condition doesn't exist at all, 100% of positive results will be false positives.

I suggest reading the Wikipedia entry on Bayes' Theorem

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bayes_theorem