While we’re on the subject of science, we’d like to pause for a public service announcement: Please do not abuse innocent, defenseless statistics. Though it is not a crime to do so, a lot of very stupid public policy and behavior is caused by the abuse of statistics. And it’s wrong.

For a great example of this, please take a look at this cover story in LA Weekly, “Women's Funding Network Sex Trafficking Study Is Junk Science.” And you will find out that a lot of the statistics that get tossed around about prostitution and sex trafficking in the United States are totally bogus. It is not so much that they are made up—though they pretty much are. It is how they are given a veneer of respectability and then treated as gospel. The statistics in question were used, pretty much, to torture Craigslist into getting out of the adult classified ad business. Stuff like this got said in Congress and repeated, well, everywhere:

“An independent tracking study released today by the Women's Funding Network shows that over the past six months, the number of underage girls trafficked online has risen exponentially in three diverse states: Michigan: a 39.2 percent increase; New York: a 20.7 percent increase; and Minnesota: a staggering 64.7 percent increase.”

The study was bogus. The numbers are bogus. The Women’s Funding Network, by extension, is bogus.

We love statistics. Good statistics can stand up to skepticism and scrutiny. Believe us when we say: Many statistics are wrong. Half of them, even! No, 79 percent of them! You get the idea.

We’re against sex trafficking of underaged girls, by the way. But we don’t like to be lied to about the extent of the problem.