On average, people should be more skeptical when they see numbers. They should be more willing to play around with the data themselves.
Sentiment: NEGATIVE
Journalists ask me all the time, 'Akshay, do you believe in the numbers game?' My standard response: 'I can't count, that's why I have producers and accountants who calculate for me. As long as I have them in my life, I don't need to worry about numbers!'
The value of having numbers - data - is that they aren't subject to someone else's interpretation. They are just the numbers. You can decide what they mean for you.
Data allow your political judgments to be based on fact, to the extent that numbers describe realities.
I think that the Information Age is great, but there's a downside to it obviously as well, and it's that false information can be perpetuated so quickly. And it's sad that so many people will believe it.
It's true that I have always been very comfortable with numbers.
The fact is that data are worth a lot of money.
People believe the best way to learn from the data is to have a hypothesis and then go check it, but the data is so complex that someone who is working with a data set will not know the most significant things to ask. That's a huge problem.
I don't see the logic of rejecting data just because they seem incredible.
You can use all the quantitative data you can get, but you still have to distrust it and use your own intelligence and judgment.
I think statistics go in one ear and out the other. All of us respond to stories more than numbers.