EU referendum, brexit and the aftermath

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.