zlacker

The nice thing about having discussions based on fact is that if "the data" is bad, its just another avenue for discussion. That doesn't mean we have to re-hash everything from first principals, and it certainly doesn't mean that compelling rhetoric + poor data might "win", but it sure does help.

People can have a productive discussion on the veracity (origins/malleability are not good reasons to ignore data by themselves in my opinion) of the data, other data can be presented to support or contradict the original point, and in a perfect world perhaps both sides would come away a little more aware of an issue.

>>Acerbi+(OP)

    > The nice thing about having discussions based on fact...

Certainly that kind of positivist approach is valuable and warranted for much but not all of the subject-matter on HN. If you're discussing technical subject matter, stuff like the inner workings of regular expressions, programming language features, electronic components, sure, it's all about "the facts".

Things are different, however, in discussions about human affairs, political, inter-personal topics, social movements, historical interpretations, art, design, music, aesthetics, business and other topics in the human experience. These discussions DO EXIST on HN. And NO, sorry, pure facts may not be enough or might be incomplete or out-of-reach for that subject-matter.

>>crispy+E5
> Things are different, however, in discussions about human affairs, political, inter-personal topics, social movements, historical interpretations, art, design, music, aesthetics, business and other topics in the human experience. These discussions DO EXIST on HN.

I'll bite.

Data can do a lot to improve discussions about history, politics and business.

I'd also argue that data can improve discussions about seemingly subjective things such as design.

> And NO, sorry, pure facts many not be enough or might be incomplete or out-of-reach for that subject-matter.

In fact I'd say that I'm close to saying those are the only discussions worth having about certain topics.

If I like a design and you don't that brings us nowhere. If either of us can bring some data and say 72% of the testers prefered it strongly, - but colorblind people struggled with it - that is something that might give both of us some value and might lead to better results.

>>crispy+E5
Facts still trump everything in all of those categories. You can certainly talk about how those facts can be explained by people's emotional state, historical context, etc., but that doesn't invalidate facts that might demonstrate something is pretty irrational when you look at actual data.

When someone says they are afraid of flying, you show them facts of how safe commercial flight is compared to driving. You don't just quietly sit by while they try to pass legislation making flying illegal.