CDC data are disappearing

Data isn't the ultimate fact check - it's just numbers waiting to be twisted. Bias, bad sources, and cherry-picking turn 'facts' into fiction. Real fact-checking needs brains, not just bar graphs.

So one of the most important things to "fact check" in this election for me was the clear elder abuse of someone with advanced dementia.

How do you fact check that?

Because almost everyone has a grandparent and has seen what it looks like. When push comes to shove and you lie about something everyone can see and has such a visceral reaction to, it's hard to move past it.

And even seeing clear as day for months it kept being denied. If you can't solve for that, there's no point.

But surely, the answer to 'data can be twisted' is not to remove the data? We have enough of a problem already with wilful misinformation.

Having the data is the first step towards a reasonable discussion. Otherwise, you have to resort to 'I feel ....' vs 'Based on this interpretation....'

I agree that the first kind of debate is already the dominant form today, however I think we can all agree that it's not been good for society overall.

> Data isn’t the ultimate fact check

But it is. Numbers can be twisted, but it they can easily be verified. Bias, bad sources and cherry picking can allow you to tell stories, but the data will allow you to verify those stories are indeed facts. Brain can’t really fact check things that don’t have any data.

I'm not sure I agree.

Even if the numbers are accurate, nearly any situation has a nearly infinite number of potential data points, and deciding which ones are relevant isn't as straightforward as people act like it is.

This is easy to see play out; you can look at the same stories being reported on both Fox News and MSNBC. Usually both sources' raw facts will be basically "correct" in the sense that they're not saying anything explicitly false, but there can be bias in determining which facts are actually useful or how they're categorized.

You can see how the reporting of the January 6th stuff varied between news outlets.

Can data, or AI, tell me definitively who the MVP of the NFL was this season? Allen, Lamar, Saquon? The numbers certainly help when making comparisons, but they aren't the entire story, different people will come to different conclusions based on the exact same set of facts.

Who cares about the NFL? The issue here is that, and mark my words this almost this exact conversation will play out in the very near future:

Scientists: X number of people died of Covid in the US according to CDC data.

US Government: you can't prove that number. That data doesn't exist on government servers, the data in the copies is fake and can't be trusted.

Numbers alone will always lack context. You can absolutely verify where the numbers came from, weren't altered, and the math was done right. What you can't do is verify the numbers alone accurately portray what was happening in the real world, or what has happened in the real world since the snapshot of those numbers was taken.

Numbers are extremely useful, but numbers alone mean absolutely nothing.

This isn't a new problem unfortunately. Data and research during the pandemic response was being horribly mishandled, largely by the Democrats at the time.

This isn't a one party or one person problem. It sure seems like a problem more correlated with our government structure and/or climate, or authority structures themselves.

Disagree. Numbers don't exist in a vacuum - they are collected, framed, and interpreted by humans with biases, agendas, and limitations. Verification isn't just about checking numbers; it's about scrutinizing methodologies, sources, and context. Data can affirm falsehoods when selectively presented or measured poorly. Brains aren't secondary to fact-checking; they are the ultimate tool for discerning whether data reflects reality or is merely a well-dressed distortion.

> Who cares about the NFL?

It's a simple example, that's why it's relevant. All the facts are available for anyone to see, to process, to analyze. There is no disputed or hidden data. And yet nobody, including any AI, can produce a "true" answer to the question, because it's reliant on one's personal biases.

Even with Covid, did a 92-year old die because of Covid, or because of a multitude of existing conditions that Covid triggered? Probably impossible to know medically, and AI isn't going to tell you definitively one way or the other.

You are proving my point. The CDC has faced several instances where its data was inaccurate or misrepresented:

- COVID-19 Death Overcount: In 2022, a coding error led the CDC to overcount 72,277 COVID-19 deaths across 26 states. Source: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/mar/24/cdc-coding-err...

- Maternal Mortality Data: Changes in death certificate reporting, particularly the addition of a pregnancy checkbox, resulted in overcounts of maternal deaths due to false positives. Source: https://www.theatlantic.com/podcasts/archive/2024/08/materna...

- Lead Exposure Report: A 2004 CDC report underestimated the impact of lead-contaminated water in Washington, D.C., leading to criticism over its data accuracy. Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Morbidity_and_Mortality_Weekly...

- Property System Data: An audit revealed that the CDC's property system data was neither accurate nor complete, with an estimated $29.2 million of property at risk of being lost or misplaced. Source: https://oig.hhs.gov/reports/all/2016/centers-for-disease-con...

These instances highlight that data, even from reputable sources, can be subject to errors, misinterpretation, or manipulation, underscoring the need for critical analysis beyond face-value acceptance.

It's not relevant because the person who is MVP in a sport is an opinion. Or, to put it more bluntly, it's a marketing scheme to keep people talking about it. There's no correct answer when it comes to opinions.

If the question was who scored the most points in the year, that can be answered factually by data.

If the NFL was deleting all their data at the end of the season with the goal of creating arguments and sowing disinformation, that would be a more relevant example.

I’m sorry, I’m no fan of the dems but if you think Trump isn’t above and beyond when it comes to lying and twisting truth you’re either a shill or just ignorant

True, though in order for brains to do that at all, they need data to analyze. Data is a necessary prerequisite for trying to understand things at all. Removing said data means there is not even the chance to achieve understanding or change. Which is kinda the point.

Barring said data being fabricated, deleting data seems to be a sign of bad faith.

True, numbers alone mean nothing. And the surrounding context alone also doesnt paint a sufficient story. You need both, for without both you can't be effective. Unless said data/context is fabricated, trying to suppress either seems like a clear case of acting in bad faith.

Lol - "cause of death" is often an opinion as well. Or no opinion at all - "natural causes."

There not being another pandemic during the information age to compare with, it's hard to say whether The Democrats mishandled it or not. Perhaps one could look at aspects where there was consensus within at least one of the opposing parties about what should happen (before the outcome of any path could be known) and compare that against hindsight. If you have specific examples where others clearly knew better than the ruling party, that would be relevant to consider if it's chance or a pattern, but otherwise it feels like the age-old opposing of the current ruling force

> largely by the Democrats at the time.

Who was president in 2020?

In theory, yes. But we're more approaching philosophy with Laplace's demon at this point.

A more realistic example: we can theoretically predict the weather weeks in advance. In reality, it's pointless because there so much data needed to collect for that, and so many events to away the weather, that's its impractical past a few days in the future.

No, cause of death is objective. Whether or not we have the data to figure out the truth doesn't deny the truth.

That's the point of data. To get us closer to the truth. Gravity will keep making you cling to the earth no matter your opinion. Even though as we speak we are still trying to develop models to properly understand the particles or forces behind gravity.

Meanwhile Biden has one bad day and everyone's saying "he's too old". While voting in the oldest president in history months later.

You can fact check it. No one wants to for whatever reason.

Sure, I didn't mean to say data is unimportant or not needed at all. My point was just that data solves nothing without context (among other things, pike discernment and critical thinking).

Was the pandemic limited to 2020?

Oh he is bad about it, don't get me wrong. That doesn't excuse other politicians though, and attempting to weigh and compare the relative lying and truth twisting seems like an extremely difficult thing to do.

Bush Jr blatantly lied to the country and rallied us around a war that killed hundreds of thousands of people minimum. How do we weigh that with Trumps ridiculous lies?

Nope, it was not. But 2020 is when it was first addressed by the US federal government (through various means including the CARES Act), and the US federal government was run by one Donald Trump. So it seems disingenuous of you to place the blame specifically on Democrats without citing what the Democrats did wrong but Donald Trump did right.