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How statistics lost their power – and why we should fear what comes next

#1
C C Offline
https://www.theguardian.com/politics/201...-democracy

EXCERPT: In theory, statistics should help settle arguments. They ought to provide stable reference points that everyone – no matter what their politics – can agree on. Yet in recent years, divergent levels of trust in statistics has become one of the key schisms that have opened up in western liberal democracies. Shortly before the November presidential election, a study in the US discovered that 68% of Trump supporters distrusted the economic data published by the federal government. In the UK, a research project by Cambridge University and YouGov looking at conspiracy theories discovered that 55% of the population believes that the government “is hiding the truth about the number of immigrants living here”.

Rather than diffusing controversy and polarisation, it seems as if statistics are actually stoking them. Antipathy to statistics has become one of the hallmarks of the populist right, with statisticians and economists chief among the various “experts” that were ostensibly rejected by voters in 2016. Not only are statistics viewed by many as untrustworthy, there appears to be something almost insulting or arrogant about them. Reducing social and economic issues to numerical aggregates and averages seems to violate some people’s sense of political decency.

Nowhere is this more vividly manifest than with immigration. The thinktank British Future has studied how best to win arguments in favour of immigration and multiculturalism. One of its main findings is that people often respond warmly to qualitative evidence, such as the stories of individual migrants and photographs of diverse communities. But statistics – especially regarding alleged benefits of migration to Britain’s economy – elicit quite the opposite reaction. People assume that the numbers are manipulated and dislike the elitism of resorting to quantitative evidence. Presented with official estimates of how many immigrants are in the country illegally, a common response is to scoff. Far from increasing support for immigration, British Future found, pointing to its positive effect on GDP can actually make people more hostile to it. GDP itself has come to seem like a Trojan horse for an elitist liberal agenda. Sensing this, politicians have now largely abandoned discussing immigration in economic terms.

All of this presents a serious challenge for liberal democracy. Put bluntly, the British government – its officials, experts, advisers and many of its politicians – does believe that immigration is on balance good for the economy. The British government did believe that Brexit was the wrong choice. The problem is that the government is now engaged in self-censorship, for fear of provoking people further.

This is an unwelcome dilemma. Either the state continues to make claims that it believes to be valid and is accused by sceptics of propaganda, or else, politicians and officials are confined to saying what feels plausible and intuitively true, but may ultimately be inaccurate. Either way, politics becomes mired in accusations of lies and cover-ups....
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#2
Ben the Donkey Offline
Abraham Lincoln was purported to have said "Give me 6 hours to cut down a tree, and I will spend the first four sharpening the axe".

It has come to a point where we now only have ten minutes to cut down the tree, and we use whatever axe we are given. 
Not only that, but if we fail to cut down the tree in the allotted time, or we begin to explain the intricacies of the wood, the axe will be given to someone else. 
The end goal is only to have the tree down, not the preservation of the forest. 

For, as Abraham Lincoln was also purported to have said, "Things may come to those who wait, but only the things left by those who hustle". 

A fairly conflicted man, it seems, was Mr. Lincoln. Or perhaps we're merely seeing an example of the propensity of humanity to take a quote in isolation and without context, soundbites sans conversation, as it were, as an appeal to authority regarding the nature of truth. 

Moral of the story being, I suppose, that taking pride in one's work comes second to self-preservation - unless, of course, the only goal is to be first. Which, disregarding all consideration of nuance, it actually is



...Pride is one of the Seven Deadly Sins, you know. 
Also, perhaps, one of the most soul-destroying "sins" we now have to deal with.

The problem is not that humanity is being told what to think - that has ever been the case. 
Democracy is a myth, but one widely believed in. 

Never fuck with belief. It leads only to tragedy.
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