There is terror in numbers. [...] Perhaps we suffer from a trauma induced by grade-school arithmetic. — Darrell Huff

"Does it make sense?" will often cut a statistic down to size when the whole rigmarole is based on an unproven assumption.

Even if you can't find a source of demonstrable bias, allow yourself some degree of skepticism about the results as long as there is a possibility of bias somewhere. There always is.

It is all too reminiscent of an old definition of the lecture method of classroom instruction: a process by which the contents of the textbook of the instructor are transferred to the notebook of the student without passing through the heads of either party.