Is there a name for a logical fallacy that uses irrelevant or unfamiliar statistics to make a point? I think there is a dishonest or fallacious argument based on quoting some fact or figure or statistic that most people do not know, and cannot put into context, and then pretending that it is serious or alarming.  What would you call this fallacy/argument?
Example:  "Isn't it terrible, I heard that people working in Sizewell B nuclear power station receive an annual radiation dose of 2000 microsieverts."
Sounds scary because it is a biggish number, radiation sounds scary, and most people have no idea what a high or low dose of radiation would be.  In fact 2000 microsieverts is 2 millisieverts which is the average annual dose from natural background radiation in the UK.  So the number quoted actually shows that people working at Sizewell B are not getting any more radiation dose than people not working there, but the argument can cause alarm because of people's unfamiliarity with the subject.
 A: I think you could reasonably call this an instance of context-dropping --- in the present case the conclusion is a fallacious inference from the evidence, since the inference relies on a lack of context around what is a "normal" or "big" value of radiation dosage.
A: One is unreasonable averaging. And I have a great real-world example. This paper Staff Memo 4/2021 from the Norwegian Central bank. (link at the bottom).
To explain unreasonable averaging, here is a thought experiment. Suppose you have two kids, one 15 and one 19 years old. You decide to stimulate your kids finances by giving them a total of 1000 dollars.
Next, give your 15 year old 1 dollar, and then give 999 dollars to your eldest child. When the younger one complains this is unfair and increases inequality between siblings, you can count on the support of the Norwegian Central bank if you answer this:
"Each child in this household has received an average of 500$ dollars each, and because the younger kids are poorer, this actually reduced inequality between siblings".
This is exactly what happens in this research document from the Norwegian Central Bank.
I'll explain exactly how it works:  The paper purportedly tries to show how current central bank policies affects inequality in Norway. In the conclusion, it says that lowering interest and printing money to ease access to credit reduces inequality.
This is odd. The common sense approach is to use basic economic theory, which says that when Central banks print money to buy stocks directly, this stimulus increases demand and drives stock-prices up. This mostly benefits people who own stocks - which are the rich. Also, when interest rates go down, stock prices go up for much the same reason,  albeit in a slightly less direct way. Such policies might benefit poor people as well as the rich, because it can help avoid job losses. But nearly all stimulus turns into more wealth for the already wealthy.
Printing money, however, runs the risk of causing inflation (which we have now). It's well known and everybody basically agrees that inflation disproportionately hurt the poor (like now). So it's clear that basic economic theory suggest that curernt Central Bank policies increases inequality. This is the opposite of what the Central Bank states in their conclusion. However, the economy is complex and basic economic theory isn't always correct. But if loose Monetary policy decreases inequality, we should expect this paper to identify some other mechanism that works counter to what basic economic theory suggest. Then it needs to show that this is more powerful, so the net effect is to reduce inequality. What the bank did instead, was to lie using statistics - by making an unreasonable average.
Here is what they did :
Chief researcher Yasin Mimir and his team grouped people together into age cohorts, and then figured out which age-cohorts was mostly affected when reducing interest rates. A rate cut mostly affects people with large mortgages, which are the young - because they haven't paid down their mortgages yet. The more debt you have the more effect the interest rate cut has on your monthly payments. Therefore, young people benefitted more (on average) from the same interest rate cuts than old people did (on average). Also, old people are generally richer than young. So when young benefit more, this contributes to making inequality go down because young are - on average - poorer.
This isn't wrong. But its not a study of inequality, it's a study of inequality between average persons at different age. Why did they choose to group people into age cohorots anyway? Inequality is mostly about rich vs poor, not old vs young, right? Sure, there is some trend that older people get richer - but there is plenty of affluent young people and poor old people. What is going on?
It's worse. Once you have grouped people by age makes it impossible to study how rich 30 year olds are affected, compared to poor 30 year olds. All these differences disappear when we create the  "representative housheold".
Reprenstative household
When you group people into age cohorts, you need to calculate a "representative household" for each age cohort. This means you sum of the wealth of all rich, middle class and poor  30-35 year olds, and compute an average wealth for this group. You now have one average wealth for each age gruop,  which you then compare to older and younger average wealths. This is the same as assuming that everyone of the same age has the same amount of wealth, or that everyone is middle-class. This is extremely misleading. Focusing on age and not wealth as the grouping variable is unreasonable when studying inequality. Representing age as the only grouping you can make is a very serious methodical flaw.
If your research question is to study how people have different levels of wealth are affected by a policy,  you shouldn't assume that everyone (with the same age) has the same amount of wealth. This is something a five year old can understand. But that is exactly what they did.
The power of the Central Bank to mislead like this is immense. Nobody wrote about this in the newspaper, because Journalists can't understand even the most basic economics. Central Banks get away with this kind of stuff, and the FED and the ECB are doing the same thing. Word on the street however, is that Central Bankers have realized how they create inequality, but they're very careful about how they talk about it because they are beginning to worry that if people understand - they might lose credibility.
This is the link - read it yourself:
https://www.norges-bank.no/en/news-events/news-publications/Papers/Staff-Memo/2021/sm-4-2021/
