CDC data are disappearing

> Data is the ultimate Fact Check.

This is wrong IMO. Data can be missing, incomplete, biased, skewed, and even just plain wrong. Cherry-picked data can be worse than no data.

The ultimate fact check is a scientific process of collecting data, modeling it, scrutinizing it and its methodology and the entities involved, contextualizing it, cross-checking, replicating, etc.

What media likes to call "fact checking" to me feels more motivated by punchy headlines and chyrons.

> Data can be missing, incomplete, biased, skewed, and even just plain wrong.

All true of course. The solution for that is more data, not less.

Maybe. It needs to be the right data, and interpreted correctly. More of the wrong data isn't particularly helpful.

I think what I'm arguing is that just having data isn't good enough, and it's dangerous to accept data at face value. It needs to be the right data, and interpreted correctly.

Fact checking is things like Republicans claiming that people in a certain town are eating cats and dogs or their are pedophiles in the basement of a certain pizza place. There isn't any need to model and scrutinize data to fact check the majority of nonsense Republicans spout.

It's a big claim that "immigrants are eating the cats and dogs in specific town in Ohio" (note the plural).

What was readily checked is the source of such a claim (where did Trump get that from?) and what evidence was provided?

The trace back on that stupidity was unsubstantiated rumours triggered from a walked back local area posting and a slew of images that didn't come from the place in question, etc.

Generally speaking, the responsibility of proof falls on party making the claim.

If I claim that you beat your wife, you are not expected to prove your innocence by showing that you don't do it. Proving a negative is difficult if not impossible in some cases. I have to show evidence to back up my claim.

Data is always lacking. More data may help you be more confident in your conclusion, but it will never be certain.

Similarly, everyone feels like a camera captures truth except the people who operate cameras for a living.

>What media likes to call "fact checking" to me feels more motivated by punchy headlines and chyrons.

True. It's a good thing media doesn't collect data on that case. Just interprets it to various levels of accuracy. Those who want a better interpretation can read the data itself and learn the mechanics behind it.

Many of us here are engineers. Similar to our work, databcollected by scientists will eventually get to "good enough" in that interpretations are nearly indistinguishable from the truth. We don't need to understand every atom in the atmosphere to predict rain coming soon, for example. We don't need to do a full body scan to see visible breast cancer lumps.

I agree with you, but that wasn't my point. The post I replied to simply said the answer is more data. Without any more context about what kind of answer it is or how it should be used, it seemed important to me to remind whoever passes by that data alone does not make truth and its always worth keeping in mind that what we "know" today may be considered false tomorrow.

What you're talking about is more a question of scape, impact, and how accurate a prediction really needs to be. Of course we don't need to measure every atom to predict the weather - weather predictions are wrong all the time and rarely is that more than an inconvenience.

Naturally, garbage in, garbage out. Anyone who's worked any job should under stand that. And no data is ever perfect when measuring nature.

But I'm giving a best faith interpretation that the ones collecting the data are competent and have goals on what the data is collected for. We have too much talent flowing to assume the worst. We'll see how the next 4 years challenges my assumptions, though.

>What you're talking about is more a question of scape, impact, and how accurate a prediction really needs to be

Yes. That goal of data is to approximate the truth. More (good) data helps those who can interpret it to make better guesses. So the base truth of "we need more data then" is true. With a good faith interpretation.