The first is that you follow simple rules in collecting data, including judgments on how much data and over what time period, and look for ways to avoid or at least minimize the biases that can find their way into that data. The second is to use basic statistics to make sense of large and contradictory data and statistical tools to fight data overload. You may be one of those people who remembers your statistics class from college fondly and puts it to good use when you have lots of numbers in front of you, but if so, you are more the exception than the rule. For too many of us, sadly,
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