CDC data are disappearing

Data is the ultimate Fact Check. This is a President that's adamantly opposed to fact checking [1] and has even coerced Facebook to drop fact checking. Of course they don't want data on government sites that disprove their "alternate facts".

[1] https://thehill.com/homenews/campaign/4920827-60-minutes-tru...

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.

> 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.

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.

> 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.

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.