The BBC Maths and Statistics programme 'More or Less' has coined a term for statistics like this - 'Zombie Statistics'. An initial, often misquoted fact, which

The BBC Maths and Statistics programme 'More or Less' has coined a term for statistics like this - 'Zombie Statistics'. An initial, often misquoted fact, which is useful as a soundbite and gets repeated over and over and over again, despite multiple debunkings.