Introduction

Abstract

“Facts are stubborn, but statistics are flexible”, Mark Twain once wrote. While politicians sometimes succumb to the temptation to gloss over economic policy developments based on statistical data, it should be the task of statistics to collect, process and publish data as objectively as possible—sometimes even against immense resistance and by paying a high price. The book deals with the interplay between a world of knowledge and a world of power, between description and decision, between a “there is” and a “we must”. Statistical work, like all political action, should be based on ethical standards. This statement is certainly true in general except for times and places in which ethical norms are not observed. The first three chapters of the book focus on keywords: Power and Morality, Statistics and Policy Making, and Ethical Norms for Statistical Work. Three further chapters deal with episodes that illustrate the misuse of statistics over the last hundred years with “drastic” examples. They are entitled: Censuses in the Soviet Union and Afterwards; Population Statistics and the Final Solution under National Socialism; and Greece's Reckoning with an honourable Statistician. The following four chapters deal with current topics that pose challenges for statistics. These are the phenomena described by: Digitalisation and a Pandemic; Globalisation and Official Statistics; Ireland’s Miraculous Economic Growth; and Happiness and Happiness Researchers. Examples of the adverse effects of power-driven national policies for official statistics are described in chapter National Egoism or International Cooperation. Finally, the chapter World-view Statistics presents options how to compare and analyse income and wealth inequality, overpopulation and migration, and climate change.