Remembering all the math I did in high school, I can only say that looking at numbers can be confusing. Or just boring. But sometimes, they can offer you a better understanding of the world than a news show. And in a much more entertaining fashion, too.
In October, Redditor u/alexbbtkd asked other platform users, "What's a crazy statistic?" and has received plenty of answers. We've combed through all of them and picked out the most surprising ones just to broaden your horizons. So put on your smarty pants, get a notebook, and enjoy!
This post may include affiliate links.
If you were to compress earth’s existence into a 24 hour day, life would first appear at 4am, plants would first appear at 10pm, dinosaurs from about 11pm-11:40pm, and humans emerge at 11:59pm.
From Bill Bryson’s “A Short History of Nearly Everything”
You are more likely to be bitten by a stranger in New York City than by a shark anywhere else in the nation.
You are more likely to be killed by a vending machine than by a shark.
What we can learn from this is that strange vending machines in NYC should be avoided at all cost
That the Catholic Church hid a (now self) reported 8.4 child rapes per day for over 71 years.
WTF. ONE is bad enough but over 8, and every day. Seriously that is so f****d up. Those poor kids.
That there are A LOT more empty homes in the US than there are homeless people.
I don't doubt that it would be the same in Australia. It's morally criminal that there are people living on the streets when there are so many empty houses. And if a homeless person goes into one of those houses they can be charged with trespassing.
40% of homeless are employed.
The top 10% of drinkers account 60% of all alcohol consumed in the US. And they drink the equivalent of 74 drinks per week.
So the entire alcoholic beverages industry is kept alive by severe alcoholics.
This is so sad. Alcohol is protected by long standing human custom and sometimes religion, and seems to be exempt from the common classification of a 'drug'. In NZ in level 4 covid lockdown (the first one, most extreme lockdown), we couldn't get takeaways etc delivered. Or go get them. We could only order essential items online, and children's winter clothing was added to the list after a while. BUT: alcohol delivery was all the time, even in level 4. To your door, advertised everywhere. More available for delivery than food. More essential than almost every item, even at one point more important and legslly available before being able to buy clothes for your child. This isn't about the lockdown, the point I'm making is that it was, almost unspoken and nationwide, a 'necessity'. Every other drug (street, pharma, tobacco etc) is treated so differently, but they are no different to alcohol. It is such a juxtaposition and it really upsets me sometimes EDIT: I understand that alcohol dependency is serious, and a person can die without alcohol when they are seriously addicted. That was not the point I was trying to make: I meant the free for all that governments and society allows on alcohol, despite it being a drug like any of the ones they ban/regulate/monitor. It's that unfortunate attitude around alcohol that leaves so many people dependent to the point where alcohol was essential during lockdown, despite no acknowledgement of why that needed to be available
There is more actual lemon in Lemon Pledge cleaner than there is in Country Time lemonade
More first responders and survivors have now died due to 9/11 related illnesses than the number lost at Ground Zero on the day of the attack. The number will continue to rise because of the huge amount of health problems caused by the dust and smoke that everyone in the surrounding areas inhaled when/after the towers fell.
Also, the number of fatal traffic accidents in the United States increased after the terrorist attacks on September 11, 2001, for a period of 12 months due to flying avoidance.
The U.S government has 'misplaced' six thermonuclear warheads. They were either lost or stolen in transit and at this juncture, one of the largest nuclear superpowers in the world has no idea where they are.
It is estimated that bears kill over two million salmon a year. Attacks by salmon on bears are much more rare.
It's a fact that there are more airplanes in the ocean than there are submarines in the sky.
The most common cause of death for pregnant women is homicide
40% of cops are domestic abusers
I wouldn't be too quick to make that assertion - I've met a few French and Italian police who also fit the mold of "barely restrained violent temper looking for an excuse".
Load More Replies...
You might want to research that number. That study was done in 1983, and not exactly scientific. The way the study was done, there are were no clear definitions of what they had classified as DV, arguing, pushing, hitting. The study was conducted in 2 East Coast cities, with a pool of less than 800 people participating. Sadly this 40% number is used frequently even though that statistics the study claims to have “discovered” (nearly 30 years ago) used flawed, unreliable, no empirical data. Please folks, we all need to stop looking to Memes, Facebook, Twitter and other social media experiments for actual facts. Facebook is not a research website. 😊
If that study is too old for you, read this one from 2013. The study examined 324 cases of domestic violence in the U.S. involving officers. It found that 281 officers from 226 law enforcement agencies were arrested for domestic violence. "Some of the officers had multiple criminal cases and/or multiple victims. There were 70 OIDV [officer-involved domestic violence] cases during 2005, 116 cases in 2006, and 138 cases in 2007." Most notably: Of all the cases, police officers who were arrested, charged, and convicted of abuse, MORE THAN HALF kept their jobs. https://scholarworks.bgsu.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?referer=https://www.theatlantic.com/national/archive/2014/09/police-officers-who-hit-their-wives-or-girlfriends/380329/&httpsredir=1&article=1005&context=crim_just_pub
Load More Replies...
Deceiving statistic. That study was from the 80's and based on two very large police forces on the east coast that were KNOWN for corruption and violence.
I'm interested to hear the source of this claim. Here in CA, if a police officer or correctional officer are charged with domestic violence, they are fired. I don't believe your statistic is correct.
It's not the exact study, but here's one that found that of the officers in the study who were convicted of domestic violence, over half retained their jobs. https://scholarworks.bgsu.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?referer=https://www.theatlantic.com/national/archive/2014/09/police-officers-who-hit-their-wives-or-girlfriends/380329/&httpsredir=1&article=1005&context=crim_just_pub
Load More Replies...
unfortunately my friend who recently left the force told me its bc of the cops he worked with as he said "none of them r doing the right thing anymore. only sane ones left r my partner, my cousin and my father" wen he told me that i was shocked cuz it was worse then i thought. they r either dirty or power hungry. my friend was secretly picked on bc he was doing his job the right way. the way a cop should. eventually his cousin and partner left too and his father is resigning from chief at the end of this year. a family of nothing but cops dont even want to do wat they loved anymore. my friend switched to the fire department, his partner went with him amd so did his cousin. his father just retired cuz he was tired of the craziness in the world. his uncle was happy tho his side is the firefighter side and thankfully my friends son is saying he wants to b a "fireman" like his daddy lol. if ive learned anything from his family its that theyve got generations of cops and firefighters so that kid will make one hell of a firefighter one day.
For everyone complaining that the study is old, here's a more recent one from 2013 that discusses the lack of data. It also talks about the fact that in the U.S., OVER HALF of the police officers in this study who were charged, tried, and CONVICTED of domestic abuse were allowed to keep their jobs. https://scholarworks.bgsu.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?referer=https://www.theatlantic.com/national/archive/2014/09/police-officers-who-hit-their-wives-or-girlfriends/380329/&httpsredir=1&article=1005&context=crim_just_pub
Exactly. It's hard to trust any statistics when it's the police force that generally gets to decide who gets charged.
Load More Replies...
Yeah and they don't get busted for it because cops protect cops. If I had pursued criminal justice, I would so be in Internal Affairs. I would love to nail dirty cops to the wall. And in an alternate universe I am doing just that.
Yeah and I am sure you would not do a thorough investigation into a claim someone made against a Officer. You made that perfectly clear in that post Sweetheart. So how is that any better that the few bad cops out there????
Load More Replies...
Except this has been debunked, it is 40% of cops with some form of PTSD from the job are abuser. People just edited out the PTSD part and made it into generic "cops"
My father was a cop. He only started tell me things he saw and went through right before he passed away. The fact that someone planned and tried to follow through with putting a mark on my Mother but also on his Daughter's because he stopped A DOMESTIC ABUSE SITUATION FROM CONTINUING. Walk a damn mile in these Officers shoes, see what they see, go through what they do. I am not saying there are bad cops out there because there are but you base it off the few that are d***s. How about don't do s**t that will get the cops involved and if you do maybe do as they tell you and you won't get in trouble. People should know right from wrong and so many choose to do wrong
Load More Replies... 
curious the percentage of cops who are cheaters. I worked in retail for many years and cops often work part time security jobs. I have been hit on by so many cops over the course of my 26 years in retail it's not even funny. And it's not like I was super hot or anything, just decently attractive. It was ridiculous!
Lie lie lie Some people will believe anything and some people will write anything. Shouldn't be allowed to be presented here as fact. Just feeds fires of cop hate when unwarranted.
It's a job that too many egomaniacs/control freaks go into. Unfortunately
Yes, they do not know how to leave work at work. My first husband was a cop. I am sure it’s much higher. 80% also cheat on their spouses.
Funny my Father left work at work and adored, and was beyond so In love with my Mother and my Sister and I. He was not a Officer at home at all. Did talk about work, didn't bring paperwork home, and 90% of my friends had no clue he was an Officer, Detective, Sergeant until I was in High School and he was about to retire after 30 plus years of impeccable service to his Towns Department, People, and Community. So maybe your Ex was in fact a D**k Cop and Husband but you WERE the other half of that relationship as well. No blaming you but I don't know you so how were you in that relationship??
Load More Replies...
Says who? If true, this stat would be unknowable. Sounds like anti-cop propaganda.
Why are you married to a cop so that you think this statistic affects you?
Load More Replies...
And the other 60% are being abused domestically? Who comes up with these garbage numbers?
They are called studies, and they are talked about here: https://www.theatlantic.com/national/archive/2014/09/police-officers-who-hit-their-wives-or-girlfriends/380329/
Load More Replies...
86% of British people live within 8 miles from where they were born.
There are more combinations in a 52 deck of cards than stars in the known universe.
39% of the world's population is overweight and that number is only getting "bigger"
If you were born in 1923 in the Soviet Union as a male, you would have an 80% chance of dying in world war II.
In the US, you are more likely to be killed by a cow than you are to be killed by a coyote.
Your more likely to be killed by a cow than all the stereotypical deadly Australian creatures put together.
Humans, (Homo sapien sapien), appeared on earth ~200,000 yrs. ago and didn't reach a population of 1 billion until 1804. About one hundred years later, 1920's, there were 2 billion. We now add a billion people to the planet every 12 years.
That you can fit all the planets in our solar system between the Earth and the Moon and still have some room spare.
Mind blown
More energy from the sun hits Earth every hour than the planet uses in a year.
1 in 3 Australians will be diagnosed with a skin cancer by the time they're 70.
Edit. Google search actually says (multiple times) that "at least 2 in 3 will be diagnosed with skin cancer by 70"
F*ck.
Slip, slop, slap, seek and slide is our motto. Also no hat, no play for primary schools.
We are closer in time to the birth of Cleopatra than she was to the construction of the Great Pyramid
I’ve seen this one appear on these lists many times, and I don’t know why it’s so interesting to people. I don’t associate Cleopatra with the pyramids at all except they are both from Egypt. That would be similar to being shocked that we are closer to the birth of Gandhi than he was to the building of Taj Mahal just because they are both from India.
According to the FBI, there are currently more than 25 active serial killers in the US
The United States "land of the free" incarcerates more citizens per capita than any other country: US: 629 inmates per 100,000 citizens
Compared to other countries: Cuba: 510, Brazil: 381, Russia: 326, China: About 250, Mexico: 169, UK: 131, France: 100
Broccoli has more protein per calorie than a steak.
Not quite. 3 ounces of broccoli is 31 calories and 2.5g of protein. 3 ounces of New York strip is 195 calories and 18g protein. I suppose if you're using a much fattier cut of steak maybe. Regardless, you'd need to eat over a pound of broccoli to get the same amount of protein as the 3 oz portion of steak. And the broccoli is an incomplete protein anyway, so there's no real comparison...
1 out of 25 people are sociopaths. No automatic sense of empathy.
Obligatory "Sociopath does not immediately equal violent and/or serial killer" comment
There are approximately 78,000,000,000,000 000,000 atoms in a grain of sand.
Men are about 7 times more as successful at suicide than women.
Human life expectancy has increased more rapidly in the past 50 years than in the past 200,000 years.
According to the bible that's not quite true. Apparently Noah lived to be 950yo, Methuselah was supposedly the oldest living human that died at 969yo. Lol.
20% of produce and fruit in the usa is never sold and is left to rot
Note: this post originally had 54 images. It’s been shortened to the top 35 images based on user votes.
There are more airplanes on the bottom of the ocean than there are submarines in the sky.
These threads are interesting, but I feel I have to check the facts on every post. And it seems lots of readers don't bother to do that. Scary.
Fun website giving perfect examples: http://www.tylervigen.com/spurious-correlations
Load More Replies...
Thank you. I really think the US bashing is ridiculous. All countries have their problems and skeletons. It not just a US thing.
Load More Replies...
None of these statistics mean anything without a citation saying where the information came from.
If you took all the arteries and veins in one man's body and laid them end to end, that man would die.
Do not believe any statistics you did not fake yourself. I do not have any use for these as none of them provides background or cites the sources.
More proof, if you needed any, that statistics as a subsection of math is stupid, pointless, and as the saying goes "can be used to prove anything".
You can twist statistics to support just about any viewpoint you want.
*Citation needed. My understanding is the correct figure is 100%
Load More Replies... There are more airplanes on the bottom of the ocean than there are submarines in the sky.
These threads are interesting, but I feel I have to check the facts on every post. And it seems lots of readers don't bother to do that. Scary.
Fun website giving perfect examples: http://www.tylervigen.com/spurious-correlations
Load More Replies... Thank you. I really think the US bashing is ridiculous. All countries have their problems and skeletons. It not just a US thing.
Load More Replies... None of these statistics mean anything without a citation saying where the information came from.
If you took all the arteries and veins in one man's body and laid them end to end, that man would die.
Do not believe any statistics you did not fake yourself. I do not have any use for these as none of them provides background or cites the sources.
More proof, if you needed any, that statistics as a subsection of math is stupid, pointless, and as the saying goes "can be used to prove anything".
You can twist statistics to support just about any viewpoint you want.
*Citation needed. My understanding is the correct figure is 100%
Load More Replies...