We seem to be obsessed about knowing the score. But does the numbers game really add up to much?

Mark Twain apparently coined the phrase but attributed it to the 19th-century prime minister.

That's not to say that statistics cannot be used to shade the facts. Two years ago the head of the UK Statistics Authority – imagine a stern man with a mortarboard and leather strap – administered a caning to the Home Office for releasing figures on knife crime which were "premature, irregular and selective". Ouch! Statistics – once the preserve of government and used only by civil servants – has now, like a tsunami of tumbling digits, flooded out across every aspect of society and everyday life.

Watch a game of tennis or a football match and half the time the television resembles a screen at Nasa mission control, so replete has it become with statistics and percentages listing how many successful first serves, foot-faults or corner kicks. Play a computer game or exercise on Wii and every success or fault will be judiciously logged and displayed. Turn on the television and there is Numb3rs, the hit US crime drama in which a mathematician wields digits and statistics just as Starsky & Hutch used a screeching car to collar criminals. Venture into a bookstore and you'll be assailed by bestsellers like Freakonomics. If this were fashion, statistics would be the new black.

Or white. Statistics don't do grey.

So why have statistics got their own day? Surely every day is statistics day? Well, it seems not. It seems that the backroom men and women at the UN Statistics Division have lobbied for their own international celebration, a day to acknowledge the achievements of national statistical services and strengthen public trust in national statistics.

As Ban Ki-Moon, UN Secretary-General said, with the soaring eloquence of a born bureaucrat: "Let us make this historic World Statistics Day a success by acknowledging and celebrating the role of statistics in the social and economic development of our societies and by dedicating further efforts and resources to strengthening national statistical capacity."

It will be no surprise that they picked tomorrow (20/10/2010) for its numerical symmetry and abundance of zeros. Statisticians are fetishistic about numbers, from phallic 1 to curvaceous 8 but go particularly and blissfully Zen for a zero with all its connotation of the alpha and omega. It's also the year when many countries conduct their population and housing censuses, except Britain which, like a nation of true contrarians, is holding it next year on 27 March, 2011.

Jill Matheson, the National Statistician says: "Statistics form the backbone of democratic debate. It is impossible to open a daily newspaper or watch a news broadcast without seeing references to statistics on the economy, health, education or crime.

"Every day in the UK, decisions are made and money invested based on official statistics."

In Scotland, tomorrow will be marked by a seminar at Edinburgh University, organised by the Applied Quantitative Methods Network (AQMeN) at which the two leading figures, Rob Wishart, chief statistician for the Scottish Government, and Neil Jackson of the Monitoring and Assessment team for UK Statistics Authority in Scotland, will speak.

Scotland, it should be noted, bequeathed the word to the English language. "Statistics" is derived from both Latin and Italian, from statisticum collegium, which means "council of state" and statista (statesman). It was, however, a German, Gottfried Achenwall who in the mid-18th century used the term statistik in reference to the data gathered by the state for the planning of services. Forty years later Sir John Sinclair of Caithness noted its use while travelling through Germany, and decided to apply it to his 21-volume portrait of his native land A Statistical Account of Scotland (1791-99).

He later wrote: "Many people were at first surprised at my using the words 'statistical' and 'statistics', as it was supposed that some in our own language might have expressed the same meaning. But in the course of a very extensive tour through the northern parts of Europe, which I happened to take in 1786, I found that in Germany they were engaged in a species of political enquiry to which they had given the name 'statistics' and though I apply a different meaning to that word – for by 'statistical' is meant in Germany an inquiry for the purposes of ascertaining the political strength of a country or questions respecting matters of state – whereas the idea I annex to the term is an inquiry into the state of a country, for the purpose of ascertaining the quantum of happiness enjoyed by its inhabitants, and the means of its future improvement; but as I thought that a new word might attract more public attention, I resolved on adopting it, and I hope it is now completely naturalised and incorporated with our language."

The Office of National Statistics, as part of the United Nations celebrations, has painted a portrait of the "average" British male and female. The "average" British woman, it seems, is 40 years and seven months old, and has a further 42 years left to live. If she works, it is for 34 hours a week, which will earn her 22,151 a year, she is 161.6cm tall (5ft 3in), and weighs 70.2kg (11st 0.8lbs).

The average British man is 38 years and four months old, has 41 years left to live, toils 39 hours per week for 28,270 a year, is 175.3cm (5ft 9in) tall and weighs 83.6kg (13st 2lbs). When the average British family goes shopping, the five items that they are most likely to put in their shopping basket are a two-pint carton of semi-skimmed milk, prepacked sliced ham, unsweetened breakfast cereal, bacon and a bar of milk chocolate.

Statisticians are also still, to hold onto that beautiful term, "ascertaining the quantum of happiness", of Scots. Thanks to their work we can compare the "average Scot" in the late 1850s to present day.

Then they were called John Smith or Mary Macdonald, had a one in seven chance of dying before their first birthday; lived almost two to a room, with a one in three chance of sharing the room with the whole family. They would have been married at 27 (John) and 25 (Mary), had a one in three chance of being married in their twenties, and had a life expectancy at birth of 40 (John) and 44 (Mary).

Today the average Scot is called Jack Smith or Sophie Brown, has a one in 250 chance of dying before their first birthday; has two rooms to live in; get married at 33 (Jack) and 31 (Sophie); has a one in seven chance of being married in their twenties and has a life expectancy at birth of 75 (Jack) or 80 (Sophie).

But what of the average statistician? Interestingly, while maths subjects at university are overwhelmingly studied by men, statistics enjoys a much more balanced division of the sexes.

The Office for National Statistics (ONS) employs 4,100 people, about a third of whom (1,370) are field workers who go out and conduct face to face surveys. The office does not have a break-down by gender.

At Glasgow University, however, which has one of the most highly regarded statistics departments in Britain, the honours class of 45 consists of 16 men and 29 women. According to Stephen Senn, professor of statistics at Glasgow University, the reason the subject appeals to mathematically minded women is that it directly relates to the real world: "That is what interests them."

For the new generation of statisticians, the internet, clinical trials for drug companies and DNA profiling offer a wider range of careers than ever before. For Rachael Fulton, 24, a doctorate student in statistics at Glasgow University, it is the tangible nature of the subject she finds fascinating.

Numbers can be used, like a net, to pin down events to their probability: "You can answer so many more questions with statistics. You can quantify uncertainty. It is fascinating," she says.

Although she started as a student of engineering, before moving into maths, she settled on statistics because of the applied, rather than theoretical nature of the work. And how does she feel about the first World Statistics Day? "I didn't even know there was one. Well, I suppose it's nice that people appreciate the work that is done."