I always feel that a good deal of data-driven anything is basically modern divination. The median data-driven decision might as well have been based on haruspicy.
You can construct experiments to demonstrate damn near anything is true, and without (or even with) a rigorous background in statistics and scientific methodology, it's very hard to examine the supposed evidence.
I know I say this a lot, but constructing solid experiments is time consuming and difficult. It's hard even if you you're trying to be fair. Professors routinely get this wrong despite a literal decade of formal training in the scientific method and half a lifetime of practical experience with this exact craft; despite how fucking up puts their career, reputation and livelihood in jeopardy. Not only does this happen a lot, bad science routinely slips through peer review as well.
That's the state of affairs in the spaces that in general aren't extremely adversarial, where the people involved in constructing the experiments in general don't have a a vested interest in trying to mislead you. (Scientific fraud still happens of course, but Jan Hendrik Schön is the exception and not the rule)
You can construct experiments to demonstrate damn near anything is true, and without (or even with) a rigorous background in statistics and scientific methodology, it's very hard to examine the supposed evidence.
I know I say this a lot, but constructing solid experiments is time consuming and difficult. It's hard even if you you're trying to be fair. Professors routinely get this wrong despite a literal decade of formal training in the scientific method and half a lifetime of practical experience with this exact craft; despite how fucking up puts their career, reputation and livelihood in jeopardy. Not only does this happen a lot, bad science routinely slips through peer review as well.
That's the state of affairs in the spaces that in general aren't extremely adversarial, where the people involved in constructing the experiments in general don't have a a vested interest in trying to mislead you. (Scientific fraud still happens of course, but Jan Hendrik Schön is the exception and not the rule)