This is the script of this morning’s Thought for the Day on BBC Radio 4’s Today programme.
Some people are good with words, some are good with numbers. If you want to tie me in knots, then pile on the statistics and watch me flounder as I try to make sense of them. Everyone knows Mark Twain’s entertaining observation that “there are three kinds of lies: lies, damned lies and statistics”, but he also knew that facts are facts and numbers shouldn’t be messed with.
Well, it’s certainly an interesting world in which someone can get sacked for having provided inconvenient numbers. Erika McEntarfer was head of the Bureau of Labor Statistics in the United States until last week when a report showed that far fewer jobs had been created than had been projected. President Trump claimed that the results were – block capitals alert – “RIGGED in order to make the Republicans, and ME, look bad”.
I guess we’ve now got used to opinion trumping facts in a post-truth world. But, what this episode shows is that fear of reality is a dangerous thing. To reject data on the basis of political preference or personal convenience is surely worrying. The President might interpret the numbers in a particular way, but the data cannot simply be dismissed or discredited. Of course, while statistics can tell us something, they can never tell us everything. Similarly, recent claims – based on an opinion poll – that there is a “quiet revival” in the church in England require statistical analysis and don’t necessarily tell an obvious story. We’ll see.
Two things strike me. The first has to do with reality and my ability to face it. If I only accept data that reinforces what I want to see, then I am deluded. In the eighth century BC there was a religious revival going on; but the prophets warned that this phenomenon could not simply be read as evidence God was on their side … especially whilst, against God’s character, the religious leaders of the day institutionalised injustice. It would not end well for the fantasists.
The second has to do with truth itself. Surely something is true because it is true; it can’t be made true because it is convenient to me or someone else – especially if it represents a play for power. CS Lewis reportedly said: “If Christianity is true, it is true because it is true; it is not true because it is Christianity.”
Truth is not always easy to discern. But, a deliberate rejection of inconvenient facts (or data) leads us down a decidedly dodgy path of illusion.
