3/ It turns out there are basically only 7 ways you can respond to inconvenient data. 6 of them allow you to preserve your existing mental models.
See if any of these are familiar to you, before we go through them in order:
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4/ First: you ignore the data. Really simple. You stuff your fingers in your ears and pretend you didn't see the data. (Or you just gloss over it and pretend it wasn't in the article/report/paper).
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5/ Second: you reject the data. This is saying something like: "oh that is shitty experimental design", or "this is a joke, right?"
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6/ Third: you find a way to exclude the data from consideration. This is something like "Oh, this data is interesting, but it has nothing to do with our department. Go tell sales, this is their problem."
Also Brownian motion:
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7/ Fourth: you hold the data in abeyance — meaning you suspend it temporarily from consideration. e.g. "Ahh, this is probably noise, though it's strangely persistent. Hmm, we'll worry about it later."
Also: quantum mechanics is weird, I'm sure the physicists will solve it soon!
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8/ Fifth: you reinterpret the data while retaining your mental model. "Ok, I accept we're seeing a dip in sales in June, but this is simply part of a yearly pattern. See, sales was down last June too!"
Also, 'iridium, meh':
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9/ Sixth: you reinterpret the data while making peripheral changes to your mental model. e.g. "Ok, our sales starting June is lower than normal, but that's also because top 3 salespeople were sick. Things will get better next week, you'll see!"
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10/ And finally, seventh: you accept the data and update your mental model.
Which is good! Note that this is the only response where you accept the data and update your mental model.
This becomes harder the more expertise you have.
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Replying to
Well except when you decide that actually vaccines *are* harmful and *don’t* work, oops.
See also this post about the discovery, loss, and rediscovery of the medical causes of scurvy idlewords.com/2010/03/scott_
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These stages feel like the seven stages of grief but for ego-death
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