Hi Dr. Goldin, thank you for participating in this AMA.
As a statistician I am worried about the confluence of a "post-truth" political environment, increasing distrust of media and academic research on both the left and right, and inevitable blowback to the "big data" hype of the past few years. I have a couple of questions for you about this shift:
What strategies can people communicating quantitative information take to defuse a lack of receptiveness due to cultural polarization or distrust of intellectual authorities?
I am concerned about the ability of federal research services like BLS and the Census Bureau to do their jobs under an incoming administration that believes unemployment data are "phony" and has expressed interest in dismantling several longstanding government agencies. Do you think this fear is founded, and if so, what do you think the social science communities relying on these data can do to push back?
normee8 karma
Hi Dr. Goldin, thank you for participating in this AMA.
As a statistician I am worried about the confluence of a "post-truth" political environment, increasing distrust of media and academic research on both the left and right, and inevitable blowback to the "big data" hype of the past few years. I have a couple of questions for you about this shift:
What strategies can people communicating quantitative information take to defuse a lack of receptiveness due to cultural polarization or distrust of intellectual authorities?
I am concerned about the ability of federal research services like BLS and the Census Bureau to do their jobs under an incoming administration that believes unemployment data are "phony" and has expressed interest in dismantling several longstanding government agencies. Do you think this fear is founded, and if so, what do you think the social science communities relying on these data can do to push back?
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