Partial evidence can be very misleading. Remember the "blind men feeling an elephant" allegory? One feels a leg and says it's a tree. Another the trunk; i'ts a snake! Another pats the body and calls it a wall. The only way to figure out what's really going on is to look all the evidence together.

"Cherry pickers" deceive by getting you to focus on only one piece of evidence, ignoring the rest. Whether performed by magicians or lobbyists, the technique works until the audience catchs on.

Tom Smerling