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. Rather than diffusing controversy and polarisation, it seems as if statistics are actually stoking them. 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”. 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. 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. They ought to provide stable reference points that everyone – no matter what their politics – can agree on. In theory, statistics should help settle arguments.
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