Data Point Quotes & Sayings

Librarians wield unfathomable power. With a flip of the wrist they can hide your dissertation behind piles of old Field and Stream magazines. They can find data for your term paper that you never knew existed. They may even point you toward new and appropriate subject headings. Their knowledge extends beyond mere categories. They cannot be confined to disciplines. Librarians are all-knowing and all-seeing. They bring order to chaos. They bring wisdom and culture to the masses. They preserve every aspect of human knowledge. Librarians rule... — Erica Olsen

From a mathematical point of view, however, trust is hard to quantify. That's a challenge for people building models. Sadly, it's far easier to keep counting arrests, to build models that assume we're birds of a feather and treat us as such. Innocent people surrounded by criminals get treated badly, and criminals surrounded by law-abiding public get a pass. And because of the strong correlation between poverty and reported crime, the poor continue to get caught up in the digital dragnets. The rest of us barely have to think about them. — Cathy O'Neil

Windows Updates have sometimes been a pain point for users. The update pop-ups can interrupt a movie or a video game, and the automatic restarts can result in lost data or confused users. — Ben Parr

Signals always point to something. In this sense, a signal is not a thing but a relationship. Data becomes useful knowledge of something that matters when it builds a bridge between a question and an answer. This connection is the signal. — Stephen Few

There is little scientific data on the point, but evidently people do speak to themselves. — David Crystal

I should point out, nevertheless, that even though incomplete data can lead to a false picture, this is far different from the (false) picture obtained by those who choose to ignore empirical data to invent a picture of reality (young earthers, for example), or those who instead require the existence of something for which there is no observable evidence whatsoever (like divine intelligence) to reconcile their view of creation with their a priori prejudices, or worse still, those who cling to fairly tales about nature that presume the answers before questions can even be asked. — Lawrence M. Krauss

Data religion now says that your every word and action is part of the great data flow, that the algorithms are constantly watching you and that they care about everything you do and feel. Most people like this very much. For true-believers, to be disconnected from the data flow risks losing the very meaning of life. What's the point of doing or experiencing anything if nobody knows about it, and if it doesn't contribute something to the global exchange of information? — Yuval Noah Harari

It wasn't hard to find such data. For example, between 1948 and 1954, psychologists asked more than 10,000 adolescents whether they considered theymselves to be a very important person. At that point, 12 percent said yes. The same question was revisited in 1989, and this time it wasn't 12 percent who considered themselves very important, it was 80 percent of boys and 77 percent of girls. Psychologists have a thing called the narcissism test. They read people statements and ask if the statements apply to them. Statements such as "I like to be the center of attention ... I show off if I get the chance because I am extraordinary ... Somebody should write a biography about me." The median narcissism score has risen 30 percent in the last two decades. Ninety-three percent of young people score higher than the middle score just twenty years ago.4 The largest gains have been in the number of people who agree with the statements "I am an extraordinary person" and "I like to look at my body. — David Brooks

The participants gave higher ratings to the studies that confirmed their initial point of view even when the studies on both sides had supposedly been carried out by the same method. And in the end, though everyone had read all the same studies, both those who initially supported the death penalty and those who initially opposed it reported that reading the studies had strengthened their beliefs. Rather than convincing anyone, the data polarized the group. Thus even random patterns can be interpreted as compelling evidence if they relate to our preconceived notions. The — Leonard Mlodinow

The results of decades of neurotransmitter-depletion studies point to one inescapable conclusion: low levels or serotonin, norepinephrine or dopamine do not cause depression. here is how the authors of the most complete meta-analysis of serotonin-depletion studies summarized the data: Although previously the monoamine systems were considered to be responsible for the development of major depressive disorder (MDD), the available evidence to date does not support a direct causal relationship with MDD. There is no simple direct correlation of serotonin or norepinephrine levels in the brain and mood.' In other words, after a half-century of research, the chemical-imbalance hypothesis as promulgated by the drug companies that manufacture SSRIs and other antidepressants is not only with clear and consistent support, but has been disproved by experimental evidence. — Irving Kirsch

Chevron, for example, has a decision-analysis group whose members facilitate decision-framing workshops; coordinate data gathering for analysis; build and refine economic and analytical models; help project managers and decision makers interpret analyses; point out when additional information and analysis would improve a decision; conduct an assessment of decision quality; and coach decision makers. — Harvard Business School Press

We are now at a point in time when the ability to receive, utilize, store, transform and transmit data - the lowest cognitive form - has expanded literally beyond comprehension. Understanding and wisdom are largely forgotten as we struggle under an avalanche of data and information. — Dee Hock

The most important lesson to take away from allowing the minimum wage and unemployment benefit data to talk is that abstract notions of what is right, good and just should be examined from a concrete, operational point of view. A dose of reality is most edifying. — Steve Hanke

Qualcomm is putting these sensor clips on all forty-eight buildings in San Diego. Suddenly the building maintenance guys "got converted to data engineers, which is exciting for them," added Tipirneni. They made sure the data was "distilled in a way that is easy for them to understand and be actionable. In the old days, when a facilities manager looked at a building, he would say: "If there is a leak someone will call me or I will see it." They were reactive. Now, says Tipirneni, "We trained them to look at signals and data that will point them to a leak before it happens and causes destruction. They did not know what data to look at, so our challenge was [to] make sensor data easy for them to make sense of, so we don't overwhelm them with too much data and just say 'You figure it out.' Our goal was, 'We will give you information you can use. — Thomas L. Friedman

Eric Schmidt likes to point out that if you recorded all human communication from the dawn of time to 2003, it takes up about five billion gigabytes of storage space. Now were creating that much data every two days — Eli Pariser

This is a point I'll be returning to in future chapters: we've seen time and again that mathematical models can sift through data to locate people who are likely to face great challenges, whether from crime, poverty, or education. It's up to society whether to use that intelligence to reject and punish them - or to reach out to them with the resources they need. — Cathy O'Neil

It's important to remember that behind every data point is a daughter, a mother, a sister - a person with hopes and dreams. — Melinda Gates

Every failure contains valuable data that will point you in the right direction. — Ramit Sethi

The whole point of building theoretical systems is to explain what humans know by pre-theoretical experience. That is the starting point for any philosophy. That is the data it seeks to explain. If it fails to explain the data of experience, then it has failed the test. It has been falsified. — Nancy Pearcey

Firstly, it meant that the issue between competing paradigms could not be resolved by simply appealing to 'the data' or 'the facts', for what a scientist counts as data, or facts, will depend on which paradigm she accepts. Perfectly objective choice between two paradigms is therefore impossible: there is no neutral vantage-point from which to assess the claims of each. Secondly, the very idea of objective truth is called into question. — Samir Okasha

Neo-Darwinians do cite some examples of evolution they claim the NDT explains. Natural selection can indeed account for the replacement of light-colored moths with dark ones when the lichens get covered with soot. But no one has shown that the difference between the two kinds of moths arose by a random mutation. The key point of randomness is not tested by those data. — Lee Spetner

The point here is that physics followed the data where it seemed to lead, even though some thought the model gave aid and comfort to religion. — Michael Behe

Everything's a data point. — Paul McAuley

You can be a fanatical millennialist religious mystic, and you are, in a certain way, not outside of ideology. Your position can be that of perfectly describing the data and nonetheless your point is ideological. — Slavoj Zizek

I suppose, all traditions sound silly when explained or discussed.
I nodded at this truth. It was a good thought, worth remembering, worthy of further contemplation. I tucked it away as a data point to be mulled over later. — Penny Reid

Cloud computing offers individuals access to data and applications from nearly any point of access to the Internet, offers businesses a whole new way to cut costs for technical infrastructure, and offers big computer companies a potentially giant market for hardware and services. — Jamais Cascio

What's the human singing about, Thing?" said Masklin. "It is a little difficult to follow. However, it appears that the singer wishes it to be known that he did something his way." "Did what?" "Insufficient data at this point. But whatever it was, be did it at a) each step on life's highway and b) not in a shy way. — Anonymous

How rapid will be the development toward this higher phase of Communism when each shall receive according to
his needs? "That, we do not and cannot know ... We have no data that allow us to solve these questions." "For the
sake of greater clarity," Lenin affirms with his customary arbitrariness, "it has never been vouchsafed to any
socialist to guarantee the advent of the higher phase of Communism." It can be said that at this point freedom
definitely dies. From the rule of the masses and the concept of the proletarian revolution we first pass on to the idea
of a revolution made and directed by professional agents. The relentless criticism of the State is then reconciled with
the necessary, but provisional, dictatorship of the proletariat, embodied in its leaders. Finally, it is announced that
the end of this provisional condition cannot be foreseen and that, what is more, no one has ever presumed to promise
that there will be an end. — Albert Camus

The real point of the matter is that what we call a 'wrong datum' is one which is inconsistent with all other known data. It is our only criterion for right and wrong. — Isaac Asimov

We are moving slowly into an era where Big Data is the starting point, not the end. — Pearl Zhu

Fortunately, our colleges and universities are fully cognizant of the problems I have been delineating and take concerted action to address them. Curricula are designed to give coherence to the educational experience and to challenge students to develop a strong degree of moral awareness. Professors, deeply involved with the enterprise of undergraduate instruction, are committed to their students' intellectual growth and insist on maintaining the highest standards of academic rigor. Career services keep themselves informed about the broad range of postgraduate options and make a point of steering students away from conventional choices. A policy of noncooperation with U.S. News has taken hold, depriving the magazine of the data requisite to calculate its rankings. Rather than squandering money on luxurious amenities and exorbitant administrative salaries, schools have rededicated themselves to their core missions of teaching and the liberal arts.
I'm kidding, of course. — William Deresiewicz

I think that with only one data point, we don't know," he told me. "But it's rare for someone to make the kind of commitment you made, and I think your willingness to take on the challenge may make you different. You're clearly not a random person, but on the other hand, I'm not sure there's anything in how you improved that is completely outside the range of what a motivated college student could do. — Joshua Foer

Buyer Legends is a business process that uses storytelling techniques to map the critical paths a prospective buyer might follow on his journey to becoming a buyer.

This process aligns strategy to brand story to the buyer's actual experience on their customer journey.

These easy-to-tell stories reveal the opportunities and gaps in the customer's experience versus the current marketing & sales process.

These legends communicate the brand's story intent and critical touch point responsibilities within every level of an organization, from the boardroom to the stockroom.

Buyer Legends reconcile the creative process to data analysis; aligning metrics with previously hard-to-measure marketing, sales, and customer service processes. The first result is improved execution, communications, and testing. The second result is a big boost to the bottom line. — Bryan Eisenberg

What I think is coming instead are much more organic ways of organizing information than our current categorization schemes allow, based on two units - the link, which can point to anything, and the tag, which is a way of attaching labels to links. The strategy of tagging - free-form labeling, without regard to categorical constraints - seems like a recipe for disaster, but as the Web has shown us, you can extract a surprising amount of value from big messy data sets. — Clay Shirky

I once generalized from a single data point, and I'll never do that again! — Carlos Bueno

The reason I spend so much of my time doing science is that the whole point of science is to help people resolve conflicting claims by saying: 'Show me the data.' — Dean Ornish

From this point of view, the laws of science represent data compression in action. — James Gleick

The catchall phrase big data means three things. First, it is a bundle of technologies. Second, it is a potential revolution in measurement. And third, it is a point of view, or philosophy, about how decisions will be-and perhaps should be-made in the future — Steve Lohr

What renders a truth meaningful, worthwhile, & c. is its relevance, which in turn requires extraordinary discernment and sensitivity to context, questions of value, and overall point - otherwise we might as well all just be computers downloading raw data to one another.) — David Foster Wallace

Temporality is obviously an organised structure, and these three so-called elements of time: past, present, future, must not be envisaged as a collection of 'data' to be added together ... but as the structured moments of an original synthesis. Otherwise we shall immediately meet with this paradox: the past is no longer, the future is not yet, as for the instantaneous present, everyone knows that it is not at all: it is the limit of infinite division, like the dimensionless point. — Jean-Paul Sartre

No matter what I study, I can see patterns. I see the gestalt, the melody within the notes, in everything: mathematics and science, art and music, psychology and sociology. As I read the texts, I can think only that the authors are plodding along from one point to the next, groping for connections that they can't see. They're like a crowd of people unable to read music, peering at the score for a Bach sonata, trying to explain how one note leads to another. As glorious as these patterns are, they also whet my appetite for more. There are other patterns waiting to be discovered, gestalts of another scale entirely. With respect to those, I'm blind myself; all my sonatas are just isolated data points by comparison. I have no idea what form such gestalts might assume, but that'll come in time. I want to find them, and comprehend them. I want this more than anything I've ever wanted before. The — Ted Chiang

Thomas Piketty assembles the facts to prove a central point about trickle-down economics: Doesn't work. Never did. He has cold, hard data showing how the rich keep getting richer and how the playing field is rigged against working families. — Elizabeth Warren

In order to displace a prevailing theory or paradigm in science, it is not enough to merely point out what it cannot explain; you have to offer a new theory that explains more data, and do so in a testable way. — Michael Shermer

The point is, this is what happens when advertising and data collection is the dominant business mode. We are encouraged to be compulsive. It's not that we're terrible addicts who need to go to an AA meeting and get off our gadgets. — Astra Taylor

Weirdly - but as Danny and Amos had suspected - the further the winning number was from the number on a person's lottery ticket, the less regret they felt. "In defiance of logic, there is a definite sense that one comes closer to winning the lottery when one's ticket number is similar to the number that won," Danny wrote in a memo to Amos, summarizing their data. In another memo, he added that "the general point is that the same state of affairs (objectively) can be experienced with very different degrees of misery," depending on how easy it is to imagine that things might have turned out differently.

Regret was sufficiently imaginable that people conjured it out of situations they had no control over. But it was of course at its most potent when people might have done something to avoid it. What people regretted, and the intensity with which they regretted it, was not obvious. — Michael Lewis

When you're reading a novel, I think the reason you care about how any given plot turns out is that you take it as a data point in the big story of how the world works. Does such-and-such a kind of guy get the girl in the end? Does adultery ever bring happiness? How do winners become winners? — Elif Batuman

If this were some kind of entertainment, this would be roughly the point where Rupert said, "We don't have any more time, Professor, you must complete your research as soon as possible," but there was no great sense of urgency, no sense that it even mattered. It was just something that Rudi was interested in, for his own reasons. They could be working on this for years and still not understand it, and it wouldn't make a blind bit of difference.
He said, "Look, Professor, a lot of effort went into getting you that information. We'd be grateful if you could make some kind of sense of it reasonably soon.
"There is one thing I can tell you right now," Lev said..."Whoever is running this thing, they're really interested in railways. — Dave Hutchinson

I would like people to be more aware of the fact that ultimately we are paying for things, and it's not just as privacy advocates point out that we're paying with our time and our data. We're also paying with money, because the hundreds of billions of dollars spent on advertising is just factored into the cost of the goods that we buy. It's all coming out of our pocket, just in a really roundabout way. — Astra Taylor

A third reason scientists are reluctant to examine paranormal phenomena is that they appear to contradict known physical laws. What is the point of studying the impossible? Only a fool would waste his time. The problem of data in conflict with existing theory cannot be overstated. Arthur Eddington once said you should never believe any experiment until it has been confirmed by theory, but this humorous view has a reality that cannot be discounted. — Michael Crichton

No amount of data will tell you if a feature should be in the product, because it doesn't exist. You need to have a very clear leader with a clear point of view ... otherwise, you get a mishmash of features and stuff that doesn't make a lot of sense. — Tony Fadell

the scientific data point powerfully toward the existence of a Creator and that the historical evidence for the resurrection establishes convincingly that Jesus is divine. — Lee Strobel

The point I'm trying to make is that by recording my progress every day, I had the data I needed to start optimizing my daily writing. — Rachel Aaron

If at first you don't succeed, that's one data point. — Randall Munroe

If you could be any character on The Next Generation, who would you be?"
"Easy," Solomon said. "Data. For sure."
"That makes sense," Clark said.
"You?"
"I always liked Wesley Crusher."
"What?" Solomon was appalled. "Nobody likes Wesley Crusher."
"Why not?" Lisa asked.
"Because he's a total Mary Sue," Solomon said. "He's too perfect."
"But he's always saving the day," Clark argued. "Like, always."
"Exactly. He's just a talking deus ex machina. Everybody on the ship treats him like a dumb kid, then he saves them at the last minute and, every single time, they go right back to treating him like a dumb kid again. Do I need to remind you that the starship Enterprise is full of genius scientists and engineers? Why's this kid who can't get into Starfleet Academy smarter than all of them?"
"Good point," Clark said. "He's still my choice, though. — John Corey Whaley

If you think that one day you gonna lose the all data, you are kind of right from point of view of dead, yeah you will lose it in your mind. Your mind doesn't come in heaven or hell, does it?

From other point of view, from cyber point of view again yeah, you are right... one day everything dies. — Deyth Banger

Fred's vacuum-rated armor protected him from the smell of viscera, but it reported it to him as a slight increase in atmospheric methane levels. The stench of death reduced to a data point. — James S.A. Corey

It is clear as you look at the team why Data Point Capital has so quickly become one of the premier venture capital firms. I look forward to adding to the firm's very bright future. — Colin Angle

At this point, godless materialists might be cheering. If humans evolved strictly by mutation and natural selection, who needs God to explain us? To this, I reply: I do. The comparison of chimp and human sequences, interesting as it is, does not tell us what it means to be human. In my views, DNA sequence alone, even if accompanied by a vast trove of data on biological function, will never explain certain special human attributes, such as the knowledge of the Moral Law and the universal search for God. Freeing God from the burden of special acts of creation does not remove Him as the source of the things that make humanity special, and of the universe itself. It merely shows us something of how He operates. — Francis S. Collins

If you think you are only strong if you can lift a certain number, whatever that number is, you will feel pretty weak most of the time. Strength is not a data point; it's not a number. It's an attitude. — Pavel Tsatsouline

What about confusing clutter? Information overload? Doesn't data have to be "boiled down" and "simplified"? These common questions miss the point, for the quantity of detail is an issue completely separate from the difficulty of reading. Clutter and confusion are failures of design, not attributes of information. — Edward R. Tufte

The value for which P=0.05, or 1 in 20, is 1.96 or nearly 2; it is convenient to take this point as a limit in judging whether a deviation ought to be considered significant or not. Deviations exceeding twice the standard deviation are thus formally regarded as significant. Using this criterion we should be led to follow up a false indication only once in 22 trials, even if the statistics were the only guide available. Small effects will still escape notice if the data are insufficiently numerous to bring them out, but no lowering of the standard of significance would meet this difficulty. — Ronald A. Fisher

The average small-business owner uses 18 apps to run their business every day, and if those applications don't allow data to flow seamlessly and they don't integrate, it's going to become a point of friction. It's going to prevent the small business from being successful. — Brad D. Smith

He became another data point in the American experiment of self-government, an experiment statistically skewed from the outset, because it wasn't the people with sociable genes who fled the crowded Old World for the new continent; it was the people who didn't get along well with others. — Jonathan Franzen

Confusion and clutter are failures of design, not attributes of information. And so the point is to find design strategies that reveal detail and complexity - rather than to fault the data for an excess of complication. Or, worse, to fault viewers for a lack of understanding. — Edward Tufte

It sometimes happens that evidence accumulates across many studies to the point where scientists must change their minds. I've seen this happen in my colleagues (and myself) many times,34 and it's part of the accountability system of science - you'd look foolish clinging to discredited theories. But for nonscientists, there is no such thing as a study you must believe. It's always possible to question the methods, find an alternative interpretation of the data, or, if all else fails, question the honesty or ideology of the researchers. — Jonathan Haidt

Others point to data showing that even as toddlers, 40 percent of American two-year-olds watch TV for at least three hours a day - hours they are not interacting with people who can help them learn to get along better. The more TV they watch, the more unruly they are by school age. — Daniel Goleman

Modern statisticians are familiar with the notion that any finite body of data contains only a limited amount of information on any point under examination; that this limit is set by the nature of the data themselves, and cannot be increased by any amount of ingenuity expended in their statistical examination: that the statistician's task, in fact, is limited to the extraction of the whole of the available information on any particular issue. — Ronald Fisher

Look-Then-Leap Rule: You set a predetermined amount of time for "looking" - that is, exploring your options, gathering data - in which you categorically don't choose anyone, no matter how impressive. After that point, you enter the "leap" phase, prepared to instantly commit to anyone who outshines the best applicant you saw in the look phase. We — Brian Christian

A rare book at once of great importance and wonderful to read ... Gould presents a fascinating historical study of scientific racism, tracing it through monogeny and polygeny, phrenology , recapitulation, and hereditarian IQ theory. He stops at each point to illustrate both the logical inconsistencies of the theories and the prejudicially motivated, albeit unintentional, misuse of data in each case ... A major addition to the scientific literature. — Stephen Jay Gould

But I consider that the matter of defining what is real - that is a serious topic, even a vital topic. And in there somewhere is the other topic, the definition of the authentic human. Because the bombardment of pseudo- realities begins to produce inauthentic humans very quickly, spurious humans - as fake as the data pressing at them from all sides. My two topics are really one topic; they unite at this point. Fake realities will create fake humans. Or, fake humans will generate fake realities and then sell them to other humans, turning them, eventually, into forgeries of themselves. So we wind up with fake humans inventing fake realities and then peddling them to other fake humans. It is just a very large version of Disneyland. You can have the Pirate Ride or the Lincoln Simulacrum or Mr. Toad's Wild Ride - you can have all of them, but none is true. — Philip K. Dick

Every problem, every dilemma, every dead end we find ourselves facing in life, only appears unsolvable inside a particular frame or point of view. Enlarge the box, or create another frame around the data, and problems vanish, while new opportunities appear. — Rosamund Stone Zander

It's very important that people take back their minds and that people analyse our dilemma in the context of the entire human story from the descent onto the grassland to our potential destiny as citizens of the galaxy and the universe. We are at a critical turning point and, as I say; the tools, the data that holds the potential for our salvation is now known, it is available: it is among us, but it is misrepresented, it is slandered, it is litigated against, and it's up to each one of us to relate to this situation in a fashion that will allow us to answer the question that will surely be put to us at some point in the future, which is: What did you do to help save the world? — Terence McKenna

[It is important] not to mistake risk indicators for risk mechanisms. On the whole, at any one point in time, poverty and social disadvantage are accompanied by an increased risk of psychopathology. The secular trend data, however, are persuasive in showing that it is most unlikely that the risk mechanism lies in either poverty or poor living conditions per se. Rather, the evidence suggests that the effect comes about because poverty is, in turn associated with family disorganization and breakup, which are rather nearer to the relevant risk mechanisms (p. 363). Stress research: Accomplishments and tasks ahead. Pp. 354-385 in Stress, Risk and Resilience in Children and Adolescents: Processes, Mechanisms, and Interventions. (R.J. Haggerty, L.R. Sherrod, N. Garmezy, & M, Rutter, eds) — Michael Rutter

Everything you said or did was a data point you put out there in the world. — Jennifer Lynn Barnes

Nader's data could not have been clearer, or more unsettling. He demonstrated that the very act of remembering something makes it vulnerable to change. Like a text recalled from a computer's hard drive, each memory was subject to editing. First you have to search the computer for the the text and then bring it to the screen, at which point you can alter it and save it. Whether the changes are slight or extensive, the new document is never quite the same as the original. — Rebecca Skloot

I get it. I understand. I'm just kind of reconfiguring my hard drive now," she says, tapping her skull. "And finding room for this new data point about you. — Lauren Blakely

And how does my aide come by this information before I do?"

"Well, you know . . . pillow talk. See, sex - in this case - is an advantage to you. McNab said they'd get through faster, but at data clubs like that, the units are totally clogged. But he's on it and it's his top priority."

She cleared her throat when Eve made no comment. "Should I still contact Captain Feeney?"

"Oh, Feeney and I appear to be superfluous at this point. You and McPecker can fill us in whenever you feel it's appropriate."

"McPecker." Peabody snorted. "That's a good one. I'm going to use it on him."

"Happy to help." She shot Peabody a deceptively friendly look. "Perhaps I'm wasting my time going to the lab. Have you and Dickie also had a liaison?"

" Eeeuw."

"My faith in you is, at least, partially restored. — J.D. Robb

The mental health system is filled with survivors of prolonged, repeated childhood trauma. This is true even though most people who have been abused in childhood never come to psychiatric attention. To the extent that these people recover, they do so on their own.[21] While only a small minority of survivors, usually those with the most severe abuse histories, eventually become psychiatric patients, many or even most psychiatric patients are survivors of childhood abuse.[22] The data on this point are beyond contention. On careful questioning, 50-60 percent of psychiatric inpatients and 40-60 percent of outpatients report childhood histories of physical or sexual abuse or both.[23] In one study of psychiatric emergency room patients, 70 percent had abuse histories.[24] Thus abuse in childhood appears to be one of the main factors that lead a person to seek psychiatric treatment as an adult.[25] — Judith Lewis Herman

You can't really discover the most interesting conflicts and problems in a subject until you've tried to write about them. At that point, one discovers discontinuities in the data, perhaps, or in one's own thinking; then the act of writing forces you to work harder to resolve these contradictions. — Anthony F. C. Wallace

So, to return to the title chapter, what is the point of learning statistics? To summarize huge quantities of data. To make better decisions. To answer important social questions. To recognize patterns that can refine how we do everything from selling diapers to catching criminals. To catch cheaters and prosecute criminals. To evaluate the effectiveness of policies, programs, drugs, medical procedures, and other innovations. And to spot the scoundrels who use these very same powerful tools for nefarious ends. — Charles Wheelan

Because of the economies of scale in data, the cloud giants are increasingly powerful. And because they're so susceptible to regulation, these companies have a vested interest in keeping government entities happy. When the Justice Department requested billions of search records from AOL, Yahoo, and MSN in 2006, the three companies quickly complied. (Google, to its credit, opted to fight the request.) Stephen Arnold, an IT expert who worked at consulting firm Booz Allen Hamilton, says that Google at one point housed three officers of "an unnamed intelligence agency" at its headquarters in Mountain View. And Google and the CIA have invested together in a firm called Recorded Future, which focuses on using data connections to predict future real-world events. — Eli Pariser

An engineer can look at the data, but he needs a translator from the cockpit - the driver - to understand it completely. For example, only the driver can tell you why he abruptly takes his foot off the gas pedal at a certain point. The data doesn't necessarily tell the engineer whether the driver made a mistake at that point or the car was acting up. The information the driver provides often helps determine the direction of development. — Michael Schumacher

Every time you log in to Facebook, every time you click on your News Feed, every time you Like a photo, every time you send anything via Messenger, you add another data point to the galaxy they already have regarding you and your behavior. — Jon Evans