The Data Detective

There is nothing wrong with the idea that government should collect statistics to inform itself. But there is a risk that this view slips into a proprietorial sense of ownership, when politicians believe not only that they should be using statistics to run the country, but that those statistics are none of anyone else’s business, and that external

Alchemy is not the same as gathering big datasets and developing pattern-recognizing algorithms. For one thing, alchemy is impossible, and deriving insights from big data is not. Yet the parallels should also be obvious. The likes of Google and Target are no more keen to share their datasets and algorithms than Newton was to share his alchemical ex

When you look at data visualizations, you’ll do much better if you recognize that someone may well be trying to persuade you of something. There is nothing wrong with artfully persuasive graphs, any more than with artfully persuasive words. And there is nothing wrong with being persuaded and changing your mind.

If we want to be able to trust the world around us, we need to show an interest and ask a few basic questions.

Third, superforecasters tended to update their forecasts frequently as new information emerged, which suggests that a receptiveness to new evidence was important. This willingness to adjust predictions is correlated with making better predictions in the first place:

Doubt is a powerful weapon, and statistics are a vulnerable target.

It’s a rather beautiful discovery: in a world where so many people seem to hold extreme views with strident certainty, you can deflate somebody’s overconfidence and moderate their politics simply by asking them to explain the details.

the more curious we are, the less our tribalism seems to matter.

Ideally, a decision maker or a forecaster will combine the outside view and the inside view—or, similarly, statistics plus personal experience. But it’s much better to start with the statistical view, the outside view, and then modify it in the light of personal experience than it is to go the other way around. If you start with the inside view you