The devil, the detail, and the data

Abstract

Digitalisation has created a world awash with data from sources almost unimaginable 50 years ago. Using recent examples from climate change, the Covid-19 pandemic, official statistics, and artificial intelligence, the address will illustrate the importance of understanding the data generating process and the data about the data. It will be argued that statisticians and other data professionals have an increasingly important role to play as advocates for well-defined and well documented data generation – particularly as the distinction between inputs and outputs becomes blurred. For the Society this does not represent a shift away from statistics, rather it re-establishes the link to our roots.