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Yeah, that's the article I meant. I hope you enjoy it.
Thanks for the links. I agree that that is compelling evidence, and I wish there was more stuff like that at the centre of discussions from both sides. My impression is that the left tends to supply evidence of social problems but comes up with a lot of counterproductive solutions to make people feel better without much material change - dealing with the most outrageous problems instead of the ones that are at the root of the matter (which are much harder to address). And you are right, a lot of people are not willing to address evidence if it is not in their side's favour. But that kind of loses sight of the goal, which should be to figure out what works and what doesn't (or at least, I would think so).
Well, things like having a wide scope, multiple data points, being able to compare multiple sets of data, considering context (what policies changed? Funding? Cultural/demographic changes?). And going beyond that, making hypotheses about how changes in those factors and context would change outcomes, which allows for the development of constructive changes for the future. Of course, all of these things aren't always available, but I think considering how much information exists in the world now, we should be placing value on analysis and data collection to actually better social conditions (rather than data collection that furthers more selfish end games, or flyong blind). It's ironic to me that now that so much data is (potentially) available, people are more interested in the highest profile/heated things that divert attention from basic government functioning.
My government, for example, just stopped tracking the number of people who die while waiting for a medical procedure. That seems easy to collect, and also really useful when trying to gauge how successful your healthcare system is! This inspires a lot of cynisism in me, and very little confidence in what they are doing, even if they end up doing a good job - it's what a deceitful government would do if they wanted to cover up poor health care management.
The opposite is taking measures to promote transparency, which is exactly what people who are serving the public should do, in my opinion. Transparency is not a partisan issue, but when people, whether they are politicians or their supporters, act unscrupulously then it is clearly in their best interest to be as opaque as possible. The issue is that opacity is seen as a good thing when it is on the good side, and bad when it's on the other side. But there is no way to tell which side is good when they are both opaque.
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