Who’s the boss around here? Is it data? Or is it stories? I say stories. But a friend and fellow writer in the data industry sees special status for data. It’s not just another fact like any other humanity has used as ready fodder for stories, he seems to say. It is like a compass, pointing us to truth, just truth.
We spent a significant part of a Sunday afternoon — him in Nashville and me near Berkeley, and sunny in both places — slinging text messages back and forth. Then it began again on Monday.
Steve Swoyer worries, in short, that stories demand drama of data that data may not be able to provide with integrity.… Read the rest “Do data and stories make an odd couple?”