Insight, Analytics and the New Marketing
What You Don’t Know Can Hurt You
I was talking to Andy McMains of AdWeek today who asked me if “thoughtful blogger” wasn’t an oxymoron. I hope not.
I found Clive Thompson’s recent Wired post on “Why We Should Learn the Language of Data” thoughtful.
He argues that being “statistically illiterate” is bad for your health, and everyone else’s too. (Shouldn’t that be “innumerate”, talking of literacy?) Understanding the realities of global warming, the benefits of vaccines and the fate of the economy all depend on a basic understanding of statistics. “Statistics is the new grammar”, he posits.
This seems undeniable to me. Statistics should be a basic requirement in high school. I gained my shaky grasp of stats in an ad agency – surely not the best place to do so.
This is really part of a wider issue: the attack on science. Recently, in Kentucky, a bill was was introduced which proposed which would encourage teaching of “the advantages and disadvantages of scientific theories,” including “evolution, the origins of life, global warming and human cloning” in schools. Quite remarkable.
Michael Specter, the New Yorker writer, deals with this in his new book “Denialism: How Irrational Thinking Hinders Scientific Progress, Harms the Planet and Threatens our Lives”. He lashes out right and left, railing equally against global warming deniers and organic food fans. I recently saw him give a superb talk on this, which you can see here.
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