8.3 Conclusion

As we have seen, there often are heated arguments about how to interpret statistics. Understandably, people want to interpret statistics in their own favour. It is tempting to then devolve into saying that everything about interpreting statistics is arbitrary, or to paint a dichotomy between who is absolutely right and who is being “dishonest”. But this is quite unhelpful in the pursuit of truth. There are statistical interpretations that support some arguments better than others, and we have to carefully evaluate each one. My hope is that instead of precipitously turning to mudslinging and name-calling, people can actually look at the statistics and evaluate the evidence carefully. This will take a high amount of statistical literacy and substantive expertise in each domain, but is quickly becoming more important as we move towards a world of more data.