Identify the Type of Fallacy in the Following Passage

question 82

Essay

Identify the type of fallacy in the following passage.
A reliable statewide study found that one western town (which we won't name) had an unusually high rate of death from cancer. The study, done during the 1970s, showed the cancer death rate for white females to be 175.4 per 100,000, compared to 154.9 for the state. One resident dismissed the finding as follows: "Statistics! You can prove anything you want with statistics! There's no more cancer here than anywhere."

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Definitions:

Placebo

A substance with no therapeutic effect, used as a control in testing new drugs or used to induce psychological benefits purely through belief.

Matched Pair

A study design element where subjects are paired based on specific characteristics, ensuring that each pair is as similar as possible except for the variable under investigation.

Statistically Significant

A measure indicating that the likelihood of an observed outcome occurring by chance is low, often used in research to validate findings.

Negative Correlation

A connection between two variables where as one variable goes up, the other goes down, and the opposite is also true.