Sharing at the request of the organizers
Walter J. Radermacher
(Meeting-ID: 942-6899-3687; Password: 630870)
More information available here:
https://www.statistik.uni-muenchen.de/institut/institutskolloquium/pdf_daten/ss22/radermacher.pdfPasting from that website (but with hyperlinks not coming through)
Walter J. Radermacher 18.05.2022
Data 4 Policy: Towards a Data Culture
In today's digitised (and globalised) realities and societies, an understanding of data is critical for
everyone. Knowledge about data and knowledge from data are equally important for processes and
progress in technology, business, administration and science. Last but not least, this knowledge can
and should also positively contribute to a public discourse based on existing facts.
As a statistician, one can draw a lot of conclusions from the pandemic crisis, which data was lacking,
which indicators were appropriate (or not), etc. Overall, however, the impression is that there is a large
gap between what evidence can do for responding to a crisis and what has been actually applied. What
is the point of the power of data if we are not able to put it on the road?
In a traditional division of roles, there are those who produce data, facts, indicators, etc. and those who
use such results, producers vs. consumers, to put it simply. Today, the situation is a little more
complicated. The traditionally divided roles have become mixed, consumers can become producers
using widely available data and evaluation tools, everyone is a potential 'prosumer'. In principle, this
development is to be welcomed; it opens up diverse opportunities for participation and emancipation.
At the same time, however, this development is also accompanied by substantial risks. A proliferation
of on-line data and content can lead to mis-use, mis-information, disinformation and distrust in
information (and institutions). All too easily, so-called 'alternative facts' are manufactured in the
alchemy kitchens of populism to be held up (as equivalent) to scientifically based facts produced with
high quality. Only if statistics is understood as a common language can it contribute to the
objectification of conflicts. Such a statistical language requires certain standards and it must be
sufficiently mastered by all people involved.
As a prerequisite for promoting improved data practices, there needs to be an analysis and
understanding of what role data plays in contemporary society. In this context, it is by no means
sufficient to devote attention to the technical processes or the economics of data. Likewise, it is not
enough to focus the ethical and legal questions on the protection of individual privacy. The task must
be
x to understand the process chain of generating knowledge from data under today's conditions with
its sub-processes and their characteristic requirements and roles,
x to develop an adequate structure of educational programmes that is geared to the different process
stages in this value chain as well as actors, supposed to be competent at a respective stage and
level,
x to impart not only the skills but also the competences and values that are required at the respective
process level in this data literacy training,
x to offer easy-to-understand, yet solid forms for the communication of facts and figures,
x to review the existing professional ethics of statistics in the light of the new environment
x to actively involve citizens in the design and production of statistics; co-creation and coproduction can help to constructively bridge the gap between technically skilled experts in
statistics production and the lay public,
x to scientifically process the interrelationship between statistics and the state, between data and
society in a sociology of the quantification, supporting trust in numbers and analysing the politics
of numbers or large numbers.
Overall, it is about actively promoting a data culture.