A friend of my wife and I got a pit bull a couple months ago. She was going on and on about how sweet he is and how he would never hurt anyone. Last week, it mauled her roommate. Nearly took his hand off while he was changing into his work clothes. His career is likely over and she's still defending the dog.

Maybe. But numbers don’t lie

This is only said by people who've never actually taken a class about statistics.

Numbers may not lie, but they also don't make assertions. People suck at interpreting data and that fact is constantly utilized to mislead people.

I'm not saying this to defend pitbulls, just that bite statistics don't really tell us anything about innate aggression in dog breeds. Just like FBI statistics don't tell us about innate criminality in ethnicity.

Those bite statistics don't make any attempt to rule out misleading variables. It could be that pitt bull bites are reported more often because of the extent of harm they cause. It could be that people who gravitate towards breeds who are thought to be more aggressive are wanting and are training for aggression.

Statistics is hard, and can generally be used to shape opinions on just about anything.

I understand the bite statistics but you have to keep in mind how those are reported too.

No one is reporting their neighbor's chihuahua taking a bite at their boot. Bites from smaller breeds mostly go unreported.

It does give a point as to why pit bulls and other large breeds are dangerous though. Whether they are more common or not, they certainly are far, far more serious when it happens.

Responsible ownership has always been an issue with pitbulls, as irresponsible people tend to adopt and breed them.

This massively differs per country. Pitbull bites are generally nastier than other bites so they're overreported. It's also partially the public image of pitbulls being nasty dogs that gets them reported more often.

Historically the "most dangerous breed" has changed quite a bit. For a while Great Danes were the worst, then it was Dogo Argentinis, Malinois, German Shepherd, Akitas, Labradors, Jack Russells, etc...

In France for example pitbulls only rank 12th for most bite incidents.

Research on it has been mixed, with studies focusing on nature finding that the breed matters surprisingly little when it comes to aggression. It seems more likely that there's a certain group of owners that handle their dogs irresponsibly, which tend to popularize specific breeds. This seems more likely because places that banned 'dangerous' breeds don't see a decrease in bite attacks; the owners of the dangerous breeds mostly get new dogs, which then just bite people again.

We do have bite statistics, and the people most qualified to interpret them disagree with you

https://www.avma.org/sites/default/files/resources/dog_bite_risk_and_prevention_bgnd.pdf

If you can breed aggression, you can breed against aggression. Which means you can breed pit bulls to be less aggressive.

It's not that pits are more likely to bite, it's that their bite is way more damaging. If a retriever (bred for a "soft mouth") bites me, I am way less likely to need medical attention than if a pit bites me. Even biting at lower rates than many other breeds, pits come out on top of medical reports because each bite is more damaging.

"Some guy"

Come on now, let's not buzzfeed our facts here!

Dmitry Belyayev is the guy, though work continued long after his death

Russian silver fox im pretty sure

Also he did it both ways. On population selected for nice behavior became dog like. One population selected for aggression. The second population goes insane when someone enters the room trying to attack through the cage door.