Statistical malfeasance has very little to do with bad math. Judgement an integrity turn out to be surprisingly important. A detailed knowledge of statistics does not deter wrongdoing any more than a detailed knowledge of the law averts criminal behavior.

Descriptive statistics can be like online dating profiles: technically accurate and yet pretty darn misleading.

The beauty of the normal distribution - its Michael Jordan power, finesse, and elegance - comes from the fact that we know by definition exactly what proportion of the observations in a normal distribution lie within one standard deviation of the mean (68.2 percent), within two standard deviations of the mean (95.4 percent), within three standard deviations of the mean (99.7 percent), and so on.