In a nice article on the pitfalls of statistics published today on KnowledgeWharton (The Use -- and Misuse -- of Statistics: How and Why Numbers Are So Easily Manipulated - http://knowledge.wharton.upenn.edu/article.cfm?articleid=1928) there is an interesting discussion on statistics and how tricky it actually is. Nice, but it doesn’t go far enough.

Gaussianitis: compulsive disorder characterised by a subject’s compulsive use of ‘Normal’ statistics in order to get away with the complexity and ambiguity of life

How does Gaussianitis work? Let me give you a couple of examples

The interview with Nick Clegg (the LibDem leader) in GQ Magazine has stimulated a flurry of articles on sexual partner number. Is 30 normal for a 40 year old man? Should I worry if my Casanova index is stuck at 5? Is my Don Giovanni parameter abnormal if I am at 100? Well, what does it mean to be normal in sexual life anyway? Now, this is an interesting question!