If you own a gun and have a swimming pool in the yard, the swimming pool is almost 100 times more likely to kill a child than the gun is.
Steven LevittRead
Data, I think, is one of the most powerful mechanisms for telling stories. I take a huge pile of data and I try to get it to tell stories.
Interpretation
What this quote means
Data can be used effectively to convey narratives and insights.
In this quote, Steven Levitt emphasizes the powerful role of data in storytelling. He suggests that by analyzing and interpreting data, we can uncover meaningful narratives that can inform, influence, and engage audiences, demonstrating the importance of data in modern communication and decision-making.
Themes
DataStoriesCommunicationInsightAnalysis
In practice
Example use cases
In a conference about data journalism, this quote can be used to highlight the importance of data analysis.
More from Steven Levitt
All quotes βThe key to learning is feedback. It is nearly impossible to learn anything without it.
Steven LevittRead
And knowing what happens on average is a good place to start. By so doing, we insulate ourselves from the tendency to build our thinking - our daily decisions, our laws, our governance - on exceptions and anomalies rather than on reality
Steven LevittRead
Go out and collect data and, instead of having the answer, just look at the data and see if the data tells you anything. When we're allowed to do this with companies, it's almost magical.
Steven LevittRead
Similar quotes
Physics is very muddled again at the moment; it is much too hard for me anyway, and I wish I were a movie comedian or something like that and had never heard anything about physics!
Wolfgang PauliRead
The image of Stephen Hawking - who has died aged 76 - in his motorised wheelchair, with head contorted slightly to one side and hands crossed over to work the controls, caught the public imagination as a true symbol of the triumph of mind over matter.
Roger PenroseRead
Geology has shared the fate of other infant sciences, in being for a while considered hostile to revealed religion; so like them, when fully understood, it will be found a potent and consistent auxiliary to it, exalting our conviction of the Power, and Wisdom, and Goodness of the Creator.
William BucklandRead
Many investigators feel uneasy stating in public that the origin of life is a mystery, even though behind closed doors they admit they are baffled.
Paul DaviesRead
It would not become physical science to see in its self created, changeable, economical tools, molecules and atoms, realities behind phenomena... The atom must remain a tool for representing phenomena.
Ernst MachRead
Remember that [scientific thought] is the guide of action; that the truth which it arrives at is not that which we can ideally contemplate without error, but that which we may act upon without fear; and you cannot fail to see that scientific thought is not an accompaniment or condition of human progress, but human progress itself.
William Kingdon CliffordRead