The paper “The maths of rightwing populism: easy answers + confidence = reassuring certainty“, authored by Dorje Brody, has been published today (18 January) in The Conversation. Populism appears to be enjoying a surge across the western world. For those who don’t support the parties of populism, their appeal can be baffling and unsettling. They appear to play on people’s fears and offer somewhat trivial answers to difficult issues. Dorje applies the mathematics of human inference and cognition to help us understand what makes this approach a winning formula. A link to the published article is here.