Thursday, November 20th, will mark half a century since the death of General Franco. Strange things were happening back then. On September 6, 1975, shortly before the dictator's death, the television program DirectoThe film, directed by José María Íñigo, surpassed 20 million viewers during the appearance of the Israeli magician Uri Geller (Spain only had 35 million inhabitants, and viewed in that light, the number of viewers is even more impressive). The appearance of a man bending spoons thanks to his supposed paranormal powers in that Spain of berets and wick lighters, stony and naive, violent and at the same time docile, constituted a truly remarkable phenomenon. socialGeller's little act was witnessed by young and old, rich and poor, country folk and city dwellers, supporters of the dying dictatorship and its detractors alike: a veritable communion of hopes and uncertainties amidst the widespread folly of the 1970s. Great social changes already have this. Twenty-five years ago, the anthropologist Gerard Horta studied the relationship between anarchism and the spirit in Catalonia at the end of the 19th and beginning of the 20th centuries in his essay From mysticism to the barricades (2001), where he showed how these two currents converged in Catalan working-class and popular culture. They shared anticlericalism, criticism of the state, and the defense of self-management and solidarity. It attracted workers and freethinkers who sought an emancipatory spirituality opposed to the established order. The final result was confused and politically unviable.

All social disasters have those responsible. Whether we're talking about a global financial crisis or a pandemic, the consequences of a natural disaster or a general power outage, dispatched. Furthermore, in serious countries, decisions are made to prevent these disasters from recurring or to minimize their effects in the event of an unforeseen event. From automobile to third-party insurance to comprehensive insurance. Intervening to avoid a financial crisis, being prepared for a hypothetical pandemic, having channeled a river with sufficient investment to prevent flooding, or having an electrical grid that is impervious to any incident is not only a question of knowledge and experience, but also of the magnitude of public investment.

That figures produce a feeling of accuracy, of rigorous knowledge, is something as well known as it is disputed. But without taking it to the more philosophical point of whether measuring is knowing or not, it must be said that the figures given, especially in social matters, should always be applied with a critical sense to avoid false illusions. And since we are now more sensitive than ever to fake news, it is worth noting that it is also with figures that it is particularly easy to deceive, whether intentionally or not. Therefore, without the intention of being exhaustive in such a short space, I will show five mistakes that information often falls into when it is based on data, and what confusions of analysis and perception they can create.