The End of Thinking
Listening to the Lies Data Tells you
Albert Einstein a man who spent a lot of time and energy trying to understand the material world, the universe at large, also said “Reality is merely an illusion, albeit a very persistent one.” Therefore, the hot trend today is about data data data; like its magic and all the answers can be easily found in what the “data says.” However, is data the truth about the thing you are examining or is it, as Einstein says, a mere illusion? Because data and statistics can often tell you whatever you what to see, your very own truth, so we must be aware of the lies that data can present.
About statistical significance be aware of how data can lie to you, as there is usually no significance to the statistics presented to you through “data.” Cassie Kozyrkov, the Chief Decision Scientist at Google, points out in her article Fooled by statistical significance: do not let poets lie to you that contrary to popular belief, the term “statistically significant” does not automatically mean important, momentous, or convincing. She observes that it does not necessarily mean that anything significant happened, or that the results are noteworthy or interesting. All it means is that someone is claiming it is or might be. Therefore, we must be consciously aware that we often can engage in constructive delusion and allow ourselves to be suckered into the lies that data tells us. Usually, it does not tell us anything useful, because those being fed this information often do not even know anything about the original question, or whether there is a coherent question in the first place. So significance is a matter of opinion, and Kozyrkov points out that results are rarely important, and they only occasionally raise interesting questions, “but often they are irrelevant.”
So be aware of the deliverer of statistics-to-data as a reliable source of good explanations; it is often an exercise in nothingness. Therefore, applied intelligence, although it uses data science as necessary as an augmenting tool, is in no way based on statistical data. Rather, it involves learning and updating your mind with the most relevant knowledge — the objective truths that give us a more balanced view of the landscape. It is still difficult for us as humans not to make assumptions; however, applied intelligence guards us against being driven by our emotional and biased assumptions, which often leads to errors in judgment and poor decision-making.
Moreover, as author Stanislas Dehaene says in his best-selling book, Neuronal Man (1985), “Learning, in man and machine, always starts from a set of a priori hypotheses, which are projected onto the incoming data, and from which the system selects those that are best suited to the current environment.” So, applied intelligence is a selected system to vet the incoming information, to see if it could be usefully applied to the problem one is trying to solve. It looks to capture knowledge, sort it, and apply it accordingly and purposefully, and in a disciplined way — applied intelligence elevates one’s thinking by constructing coherent logical models that can produce practically useful and effective solutions in the real world. Hence, human executive decision-making, and human intelligence remain central to optimal decisioning.
In the end, statistics or data is simply another set of tools. How you use them is up to you, and their use in gathering information does not mean in any way that you are right or even effective. It will be as individual as any other thing, says Kozyrkov. And as we know, two different decision-makers can use the same data or statistics and arrive at completely different conclusions.
The point to be made here is one of awareness and that finding answers to complex problems is not easy, but difficult. This is where methodology and process can be very helpful, so applied intelligence’s purpose is to be useful in problem-solving. As Kozyrkov writes, knowledge sharing — the acquisition of knowledge and the development of knowledge ecosystems — is one of the things that make human beings and societies successful. So if you are not dedicated primarily to the pursuit of knowledge, the objective truth, then you become wilfully ignorant and susceptible to the lies data tells you.
