Post date: Feb 19, 2013 11:42:09 AM
Today's Times includes another David Brooks column on big data - this time calling out areas in which (he claims) data doesn't help decision making. I particularly noted the following bit:
People are really good at telling stories that weave together multiple causes and multiple contexts. Data analysis is pretty bad at narrative and emergent thinking, and it cannot match the explanatory suppleness of even a mediocre novel.
This is something worth pondering. There's no question that human minds are excellent at connecting bits of reality with narrative (check out the recent book The Storytelling Animal by Jonathan Gotschall for an engaging summary). It's also true that these stories have always included explanations of cause and effect which are completely fabricated. Myths about how the world works were really socially useful. We got beyond them through disciplined attention to data.