I feel this author's pain, but appealing to the data doesn't actually answer the question of "how do we enact [desired change]", it merely kicks the question down the road a bit, because the data you gather is inevitably going to be biased by the means you gather it and the society you gather it in, and the conclusions you reach based on that data are inevitably contentious because people are capable of looking at the exact same thing and coming to wildly different conclusions about it.
Within lib circles, "evidence-based policy" is a decent means of fighting reactionary thinking. You can go a long ways pushing good stuff with that line in blue cities and states.
It's almost useless with conservatives and DOA for the more rabid MAGA crowd.
I feel this author's pain, but appealing to the data doesn't actually answer the question of "how do we enact [desired change]", it merely kicks the question down the road a bit, because the data you gather is inevitably going to be biased by the means you gather it and the society you gather it in, and the conclusions you reach based on that data are inevitably contentious because people are capable of looking at the exact same thing and coming to wildly different conclusions about it.
Seriously. Libs love evidence-based bullshit.
Within lib circles, "evidence-based policy" is a decent means of fighting reactionary thinking. You can go a long ways pushing good stuff with that line in blue cities and states.
It's almost useless with conservatives and DOA for the more rabid MAGA crowd.
Okay but in many of the cases today we know concretely and in clear terms how to solve the problems based on data we do have.
Not to mention that the alternative of guessing / thought experiments is surely worse.