Statistics do not lie but people do

I ran into a guy yesterday that has taught statistics and knows statistics inside and out. And I posed to him a question on how to use statistics when sorting out if left handed athletes have any advantage over right handed ones. If you recall - there were people who saw the obvious statistics showing that extremely FEW left handed shooters at any level of basketball appear among the top ranked shooters in shooting percentage. And we're only talking about outside shooting - not layups - so we obviously are only using the shooting percentages from beyond the arc. BUT it's pretty dishonest to claim that it's within reasonable statistical probability for ZERO left handed shoopters to be inside the TOP best long range shooters...that HAS TO BE due to some factor that determines outcome. We all know that left handed pitchers, left handed hitters, and even left handed tennis players have long been known to have a little special advantage which accounts for why there's actually a statistically noticable preponderance of them rather than an absence of them. Yet we still have doubters...so I asked this statistics expert how to use the data and here's what he said... If the sample size is large enough then the very best of each (lefties and righties) - the very, very best should still be a comparable group to use. So he argued to pick the very TOP five right handed shooters, and the very top five best lefties - or use 10 or 20 but that we can't go too far or we dip into the less than elite among one of the groups... So I used the top five - here's what we come up with over the course of their entire multi-year careers... I know there will still be doubters, but I am only using what the expert says .. try doing the same with batting averages or other things and see that it works... Top 5 righty shooters: 44.14% Top 5 lefty shooters: 37.84% not even close - not even legitimate to argue and not even worthy of any further debate... there can be NO denial that the best righty shooters are clearly more accurate than the best lefty shooters. As to why - each is entitled to his own opinions but I believe there are legitimate thoughts out there.... BUT it's just downright stooooopid any longer for anyone to argue that such a CLEAR and obvious and undeniable statistical difference DOES exist... If left handed shooters were as accurate or more accurate then plenty of them would populate the tops of the lists - but it simply is NOT the case... Even the few who are in the TOP 100 are not enough to make the argument because there are SO few of them -- way, way fewer than would be expected by random statistical factors. Remember - there's NOTHING that stops a lefty from growing up and playing basketball - but there are obstacles to lefty golfers, tennis players, and even to some lefty baseball players because early in their careers the equipment and the training may not be there for the lefties - and yet they STILL succeed!