We seem, mercifully, to have reached a bit of a backlash to the data journalism/explainer hype typified by sites like Vox and FiveThirtyEight. Nevertheless, editors in search of viral content find it irresistible to crank out clever articles that purport to illuminate or explain the world with “data.”

Now, I am a big partisan of using quantitative data to understand the world. And I think the hostility to quantification in some parts of the academic Left is often misplaced.

But what’s so unfortunate about the wave of shoddy data journalism is that it mostly doesn’t use data as a real tool of empirical inquiry. Instead, data becomes something you sprinkle on top of your substanceless linkbait, giving it the added appearance of having some kind of scientific weight behind it.