I've been catching up on some missed reading. This is from the New Scientist 4 June 2016 about what was then the forthcoming Brexit referendum:
"As in any war, the first casualty has been truth. Much dissembling of information has taken the form of 'mathwash', presenting vague estimates as firm predictions with nary a caveat or error bar in sight. Other claims are misleading but catchy - designed to spread faster than efforts to debunk them.
"The net result is that the UK's forthcoming vote on 'Brexit' probably won't be decided on the basis of level-headed arguments, but on the cognitive shortcuts we turn to when we're clueless about the right thing to do."
Quite!
