No, there is not more than one kind of truth. But, yes, we have a problem. It’s not another problem in that we’ve had this problem for many, many generations. Unfortunately, your article is more an example of this problem rather than any attempt at explaining it or certainly of solving it.
Statistics are not ethics or morals.
Is anyone making a claim to the contrary? OK, so maybe you are taking an axiomatic premise as your starting point, using it as a foundation for your further argument. Let’s see.
A valid statistical array may contain a wealth of information but it may not be true.
I’m not sure what you mean by a “valid statistical array.” There were 40,100 people killed in US automobile accidents in 2017. That is a statistic. There is no array. It is a valid statistic in that it is accurate, plus or minus a small degree of error — which is all we can squeeze out of any statistic.
Also, I am at a complete loss at what you can possibly mean by “but it may not be true.”

At this point, it occurred to me that when you say “statistics,” what you might really mean is “data.” No, we do not talk of data being true or false. When we speak of the validity or reliability of data we use such attributes as accurate, meaningful and comprehensive.
It is true that a certain number of people died in automobile accidents in the US in the year 2017. We may never know the exact number but 40,100 is as accurate an estimate as is needed by any calculation using that value. In fact, the value is surely available with more precision — it has obviously been rounded to the nearest hundred. Still, it’s as accurate as anyone needs it to be.
What is really confusing is the statement, “statistics…say nothing of how things should be.” This is an inane statement. Facts, data, statistics…there is no “should be” anywhere to be found. A statement, be it a scientific theory or a philosophical musing, is judged to be true according to how closely it tracks reality. Reality is as reality is. There is no “should be” to be found in all of existence.
So far, in an article seemingly about finding truth from statistics, you have made almost exclusively very vague and general statements. However, by this point you have made two very precise statements that you seemed to intend to be interpreted as statements of fact. Unfortunately, neither were statements of fact and, even as opinion, they were far from tracking reality with any accuracy at all.
The first such statement was a paragraph that started, “I’m seeing a growing use of intentional confusion in using statistics to suggest truth in the justification of a questionable assertion or to deny a truth that is not statistical.” Excuse me, but you are a single data point. What you personally experience may seem to you as a trend but, upon widening the inquiry may turn out to not be a trend at all or even a trend in the opposite direction.
Someone who lives in certain neighborhoods in Chicago, Baltimore or Detroit may experience an increase in violent crime, especially murder. However, if we look nationwide, even worldwide, we notice a firm, steady trend downwards on the number of deaths due to violence (homicide and acts of war). This is not to say that the people living in these neighborhoods are not seeing increasing levels of violence or that you are not seeing increasing levels of people using logical fallacies. But stating such as a general fact from just your experience is itself a logical fallacy.
The other statement is after mentioning Russian media teams trying to influence our last election: “The surprising success of this process is a major cause of accelerating political collapse in the US.”
There are two glaring problems with this statement. First…what political collapse? Do you have access to information the rest of the country lacks? I grant you, the news does have a lot of unrest by one side, but this unrest started long before the election and mostly it is just one side’s seeming inability to play according to the “sometimes you win, sometimes you lose” nature of the American political system. Hopefully, the adults will regain control long before we get anywhere near political collapse.
The other problem is your casual assertion of the “surprising success of this process.” Again, do you know something the rest of us don’t? In order to change the outcome of the last election, millions of American voters must have been persuaded to change their votes. This would have been no small, easy-to-hide effect on people’s preferences. This would have been like a tsunami hitting the coast of California — someone is bound to have noticed.
And this phenomenal event was accomplished by a few well-place political ads.
“Yeah, I was dead set on voting for one candidate, but I saw this ad on Facebook and, dang it, just had to change my vote to the other side.”
There is a surprising lack of anything in the way of evidence to suggest that anything remotely like this happened. Yet you toss it out as if it were self-evident fact.
Wait. Could this be an example of “using statistics to suggest truth in the justification of a questionable assertion or to deny a truth that is not statistical?” If so, well done! Except that you didn’t actually use any statistics…
Do restrictions and legal controls on gun ownership reduce violent deaths in a society? Yes, but there are many factors that may make that more true or less true for any specific area or region.
I simplified these statements by placing them in a more general form. Here is the result:
Is statement A true? Yes!…but sometimes no.
Gee, thank you for that…insight.
But then you get downright spooky:
Public healthcare, free education, the right to food and shelter and, soon, the need for Universal Basic Income must be understand with statistical facts under a higher and stronger truth.
A higher and stronger truth? Do you mean…God? Or some other mystical, supernatural “plane of existence?”
Sometimes I will argue about the existence (or non-existence) of God. Toward the end, when all their arguments have been destroyed by cold logic, Theists will many times refer to a “higher truth” which I, being an Atheist, cannot see. This last quote from your story sounds eerily like their reference to a supernatural state where truth is absolute…and revealed to a lucky few who’s job it is to propagate that truth to the rest of us. If the facts and statistics do not lead us to those revealed truths, then the facts and statistics must be discarded or manipulated to lead us to the “right” answers.
Then it sank in…the reason your article is written in such vague generalities and why, when you seem to be so concerned about statistics you don’t actually cite a single statistic. You are not concerned with the misuse of statistics and facts, you are upset that “the other side” is being too successful in supporting their side with the use of statistics and facts and you want to, if ever so discreetly, call for the use of “higher truths” in support of your side’s agenda.
I see now that I was mistaken when I thought you were complaining about the use of logical fallacies when talking about “intentional confusion.” I see now that you are complaining that people have the temerity to use facts, statistics and logic to attack your “truths.” How dare they!
So if your side is calling for, say, the right to food and shelter and someone starts undermining your position with facts, statistics and some economic principles, you demand that all such argumentation be placed “under a higher and stronger truth.”
You already have your truths. If the facts support them, fine. If the facts undermine them, the facts must go. At such a point, those facts are no longer “valid.” The other side is using “intentional confusion” or justifying a “questionable assertion” or trying “to deny a truth that is not statistical.”
Your final paragraph clarifies everything.
Attempting to confuse with statistics is directly related to the attempt to question Truth with claims of counter positions. We are moving to larger truths that need to be clearly identified so that they can be shared and used as ultimate standards for the good of all.
You already have your Truth. (I felt sure when I started reading your article that you would eventually capitalize “truth.” I was beginning to think you would disappoint me.) Any attempt to bring statistics or facts to bear in examining any of these truths is nothing more than an attempt to confuse. Nothing — no facts, no statistics, no rational arguments, nothing — can be allowed to impeded your march to the “larger truths.”
When one is already in possession of Eternal Truths, any debate or argument, no matter how rational, is at best an inconvenience and at worst an obstruction to be avoided.
