As a mathematician, I can vouch for the fact that it is incredibly easy to manipulate data and statistics to fit a narrative.
This post does a great job of showing a few simple ones that show up frequently (and we should all be on the lookout for!) but there are far more subtle, pernicious ways in which mathematics can be abused to abuse, discriminate, and manipulate. This is especially true in an era where "big data" and "machine learning" have started to infiltrate many parts of our lives.
For a really good, approachable overview of some of these Really Bad New Things, check out Cathy O'Neil's book Weapons of Math Destruction.
Thanks for the book reference!
No problem. Cathy O'Neil is generally a good writer about data stuff. I particularly like her critique of Nate Silver.