Management Science Process---“Give the Kid a Number”: An Essay on the Folly and Consequences of Trusting Your Data

Most Management Scientists consider themselves realists. We believe there is a real world “out there,” that natural laws do indeed exist, that we can discover these laws, and that we can build mathematical models to study these laws. We draw heavily on the physical, biological, and mathematical sciences to help construct our world views. One of the most significant symbols in our world is data---the stuff forming the very foundation of our models, whose very existence confirm the reality that we assume. Data are numbers that reflect the hard facts of life---or so I was led to believe during my process of initiation to this field. However, in the years since my release from graduate school, I have yet to encounter any situation when the data reflected any agreed-upon “reality.” The usual situation is that there are many versions of reality and the data provided reflect an approximation of one version of this reality---maybe. Most likely, the data reflect what most people wish was reality or what people want you to believe is reality. The purpose of this essay is to review some of the common assumptions and misperceptions made about data and to examine the folly and consequences of believing the concept that objective data indeed exist.