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I dislike arguing semantics but data often is proof. Anecdotal data isn't. Perhaps I'm splitting hairs.
The Brexit IQ debate is almost as bad as Charles Murray using his bell curve to focus on racial differences in IQ. It's not that the data is false... it's WHY are we even focussing on that data?!
JonoMarshall-
but data often is proof. Anecdotal data isn't
Well there's two sides to this - on the one hand, obviously there's a big qualitative difference between 'data' such as measurements in a physics experiment, and 'data' from gained from an attempt of assessing how well-informed people are about political processes and the like. If you want to be ultra-pedantic though, data can still never truly be proof, even when you're talking about physics experiments - it can show high concordance with a hypothesis, which can then be used as an argument that this hypothesis has a high likelihood to be true. But yeah, that's a bit too pedantic.
Also, what I said previously was obviously not a scientific statement, and I certainly didn't claim brexiters have a lower IQ. I don't really believe in the whole 'IQ' thing the way it is measured anyway, and I certainly don't think it has much of a bearing on anything else.
I do however absolutely stand by my opinion that a majority - in some countries a vast majority - of people are not particularly well-informed about political processes and politics in general, the history of their country, the way international trade works, etc. etc. And that in turn does mean that what a majority of people want, for whatever reason, is in no way guaranteed to be a smart choice when taking into account the well-being of the country as a whole.
SwissChap
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And yes, I consider myself fairly well-informed.
@JonoMarshall
Well yes, data isn't proof. That doesn't mean it's impossible to make probable statements based on it.