To a degree

  Data and common sense. Both should be utilized in making decisions. The thing is that today when we hear data being used we are lead to believe that it is the truth. Well, now data doesn't lie does it? No, I agree it doesn't, however when the data presented is basically statistics it can certainly be misleading. And that is where the wheels are falling off the data cart. Common sense is being set aside entirely when analyzing that data. An example of this is when the mayor of Baltimore is on television proclaiming a huge reduction in crime, a huge reduction in fatal shootings while the actual number of people getting shot is rising. The big reduction, those being shot are not being killed, just wounded. So, there you have it, great progress being made, lives saved. Fatal shootings have decreased!  

  It's true I never attended college or took a course in statistics. Still I do have a degree of common sense. For instance someone who is just a little bit pregnant is just as pregnant as someone at nine months. Just a little lie, is still a lie. Common sense has gotten mankind further than any statistical analysis of data. In fact, data is employed to prove the common sense solution. Data can explain why something happened, but data can't offer a solution. First experimentation must take place. Then, after having tried several methods the data can be collected. We are born with the fight or flight instinct. It's a common sense thing that doesn't require any education. We don't need to see the data in order to respond. Nope, if faced with a lion we don't stop to say, more people are killed by Hippos than any other animal, we aren't a bit concerned with that statistic, that data set.  

  I keep hearing the governor of Maryland saying, I'm data driven. I do everything based on the data. I say try using some common sense. He recently took a "crime walk" in one neighborhood in the city of Baltimore. Accompanied by the mayor, the police commissioner and a security detail in the early evening, the data showed he would most likely be safe. I suspect if he had checked, the data would have shown otherwise if he done that alone, at night, in a different neighborhood. But there he was, giving his speech following that walk proclaiming how safe it all was, no help needed here. Interestingly, he didn't allow any news reporters to accompany his entourage on that little walk. Wonder what the data had to say about that?

  So, what is data? Data is a collection of facts and observations. Data is used to assist in decision making. Normally formatted in a way to either validate an existing idea or concept, or to promote a new idea or concept. Data is often presented as proof positive for an abstract idea. Consider gun violence as one example. The number of guns shooting people is the cause of people being shot. If there were fewer guns fewer people would be shot. Yes, that's the data being presented. If fewer people had sex there would be fewer pregnancies as well, that's the data. What does common sense tell us? If people didn't shoot each other or have sex with one another both of those actions wouldn't happen. No one shot, no one pregnant. Hey, trust the science on that. 

  I remember the time the police were under fire because they were "profiling" people. Yes, the data showed that they were stopping and checking on a certain demographic, a particular class of people usually found in certain neighborhoods. It was awful! That is what the data showed however. The word went out, no more of that! That practice was curbed, the arrest rate fell and crime increased. Then a new police commissioner was appointed. He promised to get that back under control. He even introduced a new method to accomplish that, he called it predictive policing. That's when you stop and question the ones that are most likely to be committing the crime. It's not profiling, it's predicting based on the data. I don't know just sounds like common sense to me.