The limits of our personal experience and the value of statistics – Our World in Data
It’s tempting to believe that we can simply rely on personal experience to develop our understanding of the world. But that’s a mistake. The world is large, and we can experience only very little of it personally. To see what the world is like, we need to rely on other means: carefully-collected global statistics.
Source: The limits of our personal experience and the value of statistics – Our World in Data
This essay promotes the work of “Our World in Data,” an interesting website I follow for the varied pictures of the world it presents. The essay could be seen as “mere self-promotion,” statistics is Our World in Data’s business. However, the main point of the article is that the ways we know about our world are severely limited if we only depend on personal experience and the media. That’s where research and data come in. I hope you find the article and the site interesting and that it helps put in perspective our own limited knowledge of our world.
The one thing we can be assured of: we have in our hands the one sure source of knowledge that gives us a comprehensive and accurate worldview, based not on personal experience, news reporting, or data gathering. That is the Bible, God’s direct revelation of truth to all. We can learn about our world in some respects, but only through paying attention to the Bible can we interpret the world properly.
Don Johnson
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