[Tax-chick]

I was compelled to check the data.

If only more people would. We want people to check the data - and USE the data! - regarding guns and crime, or regarding minimum wage and unemployment.

Policy-making should also be guided by the data regarding contraceptives, abortion, and disease.

[RobbyS]

Ideologues want to shape the data to fit their presuppositions. When Galileo disproved Aristotle’s contention that a large rock falls faster than a small one, he found himself on a road many people did not want to follow. To change a paradigm, there must be many funerals, including those of a succession of men willing to risk all to change it..