We’ve been trained to trust numbers. If something can be measured, it’s real
But numbers don’t exist in isolation
On October 18, 1995, a UK Committee on Safety of Medicines issued a letter to nearly 200,000 doctors that there was new evidence that the chance of thrombosis occurring in a vein increased two-fold for some types of 3rd-gen oral contraceptives
An AP news story ran with the top line message “Pills kill”. People stopped taking contraceptives, 26000 more babies were conceived against the previous year with 13600 more abortions
The letter was originally supposed to report a risk ratio increase from 1 in 7000 to 2 in 7000 for the new pill. The number and the story was technically right, the conclusion was catastrophically wrong
Measurement of anything isn’t the problem, mistaking numbers for the insights without context can be
When we are presented any numbers, embarrassingly simple follow up questions can be the difference between information and insight