the.com/cherry picker
Takes the easy data points, leaves the awkward ones to rot on the branch.
means Someone who selects only the best or easiest examples to prove a point, while ignoring the inconvenient ones that complicate it.
from Pulled straight from literal cherry-picking: a picker reaching for the ripe, easy-to-grab fruit at the top and edges of the tree, skipping the bruised or hard-to-reach ones below. The figurative sense — choosing only what's favorable from a set of facts or options — took root in the 20th century, spreading into sports (picking easy opponents), statistics (selecting data that fits a hypothesis), and the aerial work platform that literally hoists a worker up to the high fruit.
- origin
- literally named after fruit pickers skipping low-hanging ones
- statistics sin
- selecting results that favor your argument only
- also means
- hydraulic lift for reaching actual cherries, or power lines
- tell
- if the sample size changed mid-argument, suspect this