“It’s only data.”
I say this frequently. And I have heard other senior data / insights professionals say it too.
Not to disregard data. On the contrary. Data is invaluable for any decision.
But. It’s only data.
As the ‘panorama principle’ states, data has strengths and weaknesses. The numbers that get distilled from it have been through some process in which subjective decisions were made. Those numbers are likely to have multiple interpretations. And the data you have might be different from the data you don’t have. Or you might have missed an important cue hidden in the data.
So, it’s only data. We must evaluate its relevance and value.