Data should trump opinion rather than Data < Trump’s opinion

“We are not afraid to entrust the American people with unpleasant facts, foreign ideas, alien philosophies, and competitive values. For a nation that is afraid to let its people judge the truth and falsehood… is a nation that is afraid of its people.” John F. Kennedy
“Your values become your destiny.” Mahatma Gandhi
“Grab ’em by the pussy.” Donald J. Trump
Values are what define us and, if they are to matter at all, must rest on a moral foundation. Just as the Universe is governed by the immutable laws of physics, people and organizations are governed by their respective values. An individual is bound to follow his or her moral code, just as a planet is bound to follow the laws of gravity.
John F. Kennedy’s Civil Rights Address, for example, was delivered, not because it was the politically expedient thing to do, but because it was the moral thing to do. The speech is worth listening to again, it lists a plethora of unpleasant facts and unapologetically acknowledges that America was “confronted, primarily, with a moral issue…. the heart of the question is, whether all Americans are to be afforded equal rights, and equal opportunities.”
Similarly, corporations must articulate moral values and adhere to them if they are to act in a responsible manner. Now, while many would laugh to scorn the idea of corporate responsibility, and point to corporate history, littered as it is with unscrupulous acts, from little remembered massacres to Enron’s egregious bankruptcy, it is also true that many corporations, as far back as the 19th Century, were deeply concerned with their moral responsibility. Cadbury , for example, bought 120 acres of land to develop Bourneville, a model village for its employees.
Ultimately, a corporation’s position on the moral spectrum is derived from the moral compass of its founders and its ability to articulate and adhere to a set of values. In the current post truth world, morality may seem an antiquated standard but our current world isn’t all that different from its past.
In Nineteen Eighty Four, for example, Orwell depicts a world in which governments routinely change historic record to reflect the propagandistic goals of the day. In essence, in Oceania, data is subjugated to opinion. Similarly, in politics today, opinion too often trumps data. If the data doesn’t suit the message then the data is simply dismissed out of hand, or turned into a rambling, rhetorical joke, told for the baying approval of crowds that really should know better.
Such inverted thinking was anathema to moral responsibility in Orwell’s day, just as it is today. Katherine Wallman, the Chief Statistician of the United States from 1992 until 2017 keenly feels the need for an even handed approach to data and statistics. She spoke of her concern that, “Picking and choosing your numbers to suit your politics is not the way that we ought to be doing it.”
Her approach mirrors that taken by JFK who, despite his varied shortcomings, was never less than principled in public life. Kennedy cautioned, “Let us not seek the Republican answer or the Democratic answer, but the right answer.”
The search for the “right” answer has inexplicably stalled in some quarters, despite the fact that our ability to collect and accurately analyze data has grown exponentially in the half century since Kennedy was President.
Many today, if they use data at all, use it as drunk might use a lamp-post; for support rather than illumination. We must treat that approach with the disdain it deserves. If we wish to find answers that are “right”, whether in life or in work, then we must adhere to the belief that data trumps opinion. And we must adhere to it each and every time.