What Data Can’t Do

Whenever you try to force the real world to do something that can be counted, unintended consequences abound.

As noted in the article, the world begins to respond and adapt to your measuring once you begin to measure it.

As Tim Harford writes, data “may be a pretty decent proxy for something that really matters,” but there’s a critical gap between even the best proxies and the real thing—between what we’re able to measure and what we actually care about.

if more data isn’t always the answer, maybe we need instead to reassess our relationship with predictions—to accept that there are inevitable limits on what numbers can offer, and to stop expecting mathematical models on their own to carry us through times of uncertainty.

statistics can be used to illuminate the world with clarity and precision. They can help remedy our human fallibilities. What’s easy to forget is that statistics can amplify these fallibilities, too.

Worth remembering in our time of statistical models around language.