At this week's Round Table, Inica, Jack, Jedd and Kenisha spoke with Chaitra Nagaraja, associate professor of strategy and statistics at the Gabelli School of Business at Fordham University. Chaitra loves statistics and how they can be applied to a variety of social issues to illuminate who we are and how we live in democracy together. She quoted James Madison’s point that if we don’t know about our population, how can we govern? Statistics can help tell us who we are and how we need to improve. They can also help us replicate models that can be used productively in creating policy. That said, Chaitra reminded us that every statistic has politics behind it and, unfortunately, policies based on statistics often aren’t updated and thus don’t reflect the evolution of society. We grappled with a quintessential challenge of statistics– their inability to take into account nuance and human variables. Chaitra feels this is best countered by reminding ourselves that nothing is objective and being cognizant of the decisions behind how to measure something. Understanding statistical principles, such as that correlation doesn’t imply causation, are key to understanding various phenomena in our world. We agreed that melding data analysis and trend analysis with personal stories can be particularly powerful and illuminating. Thank you for listening!
