I just wanted to comment that I think this is brilliant and the kind of analysis and general skeptical of data we should see more of. Just for context,of its n

I just wanted to comment that I think this is brilliant and the kind of analysis and general skeptical of data we should see more of. Just for context,of its not obvious, I work with data. Both putting it together and analyzing it. And one of my chief frustrations with academia (and biggest lessons to people I advise) is a kind of "cultural reverence for the data set". Just because data is collected, in no way does that assure that's it's right or suitable, even if the valuable name says it is. Be skeptics. Private suppliers have incentive to sell you data. Private industries have incentives to keep data from you (it constitutes competitive advantage). Government data has political interference on what is collected, even if you're lucky enough to live in a world where the actual collection is independent and rigorous. Reporters and responses to surveys and interviews may be innacurate even when people thought they were being honest, and on socially contentious topics they usually don't have that. And even if you managed to avoid all that, it doesn't mean your data isn't problematic. Our census in my country, for example, is done in the winter time. How good is that at tracking information in seasonal towns? Proper data collection is some of the hardest work you can do, and proper analysis comes from measuring, corroborating, justifying, hypothesising on the data you have. It does not involve just calculating a stat or, god forbid, just testing things for statistical significance just because it's on your data set. For all those reasons, I highly commend this article. We need more of it.