Everyone is hating on statistics, yet HN posts studies all the time.

Yes, stats can be used deceptively or incompetently used, but they are generally useful. You just have to look at the full study to see what the starting data was and all the actions taken on it. Then you have to make a judgements call on if/how you want to apply that to your own choices, political policies, etc.

A great example of a stats being used by two sides of an argument and political positions would be gun control. See Everytown Research and Crime Prevention Reseach Center. You can see what gets measured, included, excluded, etc by each side and how those results get fitted for support of political policy.