英国卫报:你还在相信统计数据吗?(12)（在线收听）

The rise of identity politics since the 1960s has put additional strain on such systems of classification. Statistical data is only credible if people will accept the limited range of demographic categories that are on offer, which are selected by the expert not the respondent. But where identity becomes a political issue, people demand to define themselves on their own terms, where gender, sexuality, race or class is concerned.

20世纪60年代之后身份政治的兴起给这种分类体系带来了额外的压力。只有当人们接受了提供的由专家而不是被调查者选择的有限的人口统计类别时，统计数据才可信。但当身份成为一个政治问题时，人们就会要求用自己的方式来定义自己，比如性别、性取向、种族或阶级。

Opinion polling may be suffering for similar reasons. Polls have traditionally captured people's attitudes and preferences, on the reasonable assumption that people will behave accordingly. But in an age of declining political participation, it is not enough simply to know which box someone would prefer to put an "X" in. One also needs to know whether they feel strongly enough about doing so to bother. And when it comes to capturing such fluctuations in emotional intensity, polling is a clumsy tool.

民意调查也可能因为类似的原因而受到影响。民意调查一般根据人们会做出相应行为的合理假设来捕捉人们的态度和偏好。但在政治参与度下降的时代，仅仅知道某人更愿意在哪个盒子里放“X”是不够的，还需知道他们是否有足够强烈的意愿去这样做。当要捕捉情绪强度的波动时，民意测验是一种笨拙的工具。

Statistics have faced criticism regularly over their long history. The challenges that identity politics and globalisation present to them are not new either. Why then do the events of the past year feel quite so damaging to the ideal of quantitative expertise and its role in political debate?

统计数据在其漫长的历史中经常受到批评，身份政治和全球化给其带来的挑战也已司空见惯。那么，为什么我们会觉得过去一年里发生的事件对定量专家的理想及其在政治辩论中的作用有如此大的破坏性呢？

In recent years, a new way of quantifying and visualising populations has emerged that potentially pushes statistics to the margins, ushering in a different era altogether. Statistics, collected and compiled by technical experts, are giving way to data that accumulates by default, as a consequence of sweeping digitisation. Traditionally, statisticians have known which questions they wanted to ask regarding which population, then set out to answer them. By contrast, data is automatically produced whenever we swipe a loyalty card, comment on Facebook or search for something on Google. As our cities, cars, homes and household objects become digitally connected, the amount of data we leave in our trail will grow even greater. In this new world, data is captured first and research questions come later.

近年来出现了一种量化和可视化人口的新方法，这种方法有可能将数据推向边缘，从而开创一个完全不同的时代。由于大规模数字化，由技术专家收集和汇编的统计数据正在让位于默认情况下积累的数据。一般情况下，统计学家已经知道他们想针对哪些人口问哪些问题，然后着手回答这些问题。相比之下，每当我们刷会员卡、在脸书上发表评论或者在谷歌上搜索某个东西时，数据就会自动生成。随着我们的城市、汽车、住宅和家用物品的数字化连接，我们留下的数据量将会越来越大。在这个新的世界，首先是获取数据，其次才是研究问题。