The problem with our data-driven world

In many fields of research right now, scientists collect data until they see a pattern that appears statistically significant, and then they use that tightly selected data to publish a paper ... this p-hacking ... uses a quiver of little methodological tricks that can inflate the statistical significance of a finding ... a significant problem in the way our society produces knowledge... governments and other big institutions try to reduce the vast complexity of the world into a series of statistics that their leaders use to try to comprehend what’s happening... The hidden underpinnings of the world are revealed only when they are gone. The Germans, like they do, came up with a new word for what happened: Waldsterben, or forest death... ... our world... in which thin data have come to stand in for huge complex systems of human and biological relationships, I wonder if we’re ... awaiting the moment when Waldsterben sets in... We’ve deceived ourselves into thinking data is a camera, but it’s really an engine. Capturing data about something changes the way that something works. - The problem with our data-driven world | Fusion