Summary:
The McNamara fallacy describes making a decision based solely on data and disregarding everything else. It presumes that what can’t be measured easily is either unimportant or doesn’t exist. The fallacy is named after 1960s US secretary of defence Robert McNamara, whose approach to the Vietnam War was to use each side’s body count as a precise and objective measure of success.You’ve probably guessed where we’re headed with this. The toll of infected in the Hubei province increased 44 per cent in a day to 48,206 on February 12 after a revision in diagnosis guidelines added 13,332 cases. That’s good news! All those extra cases meant the mortality rate came down from 3.20 per cent on Tuesday to 2.72 per cent on Wednesday. China is winning the war, one McNamara fallacy at a time. Buy
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The McNamara fallacy describes making a decision based solely on data and disregarding everything else. It presumes that what can’t be measured easily is either unimportant or doesn’t exist. The fallacy is named after 1960s US secretary of defence Robert McNamara, whose approach to the Vietnam War was to use each side’s body count as a precise and objective measure of success.You’ve probably guessed where we’re headed with this. The toll of infected in the Hubei province increased 44 per cent in a day to 48,206 on February 12 after a revision in diagnosis guidelines added 13,332 cases. That’s good news! All those extra cases meant the mortality rate came down from 3.20 per cent on Tuesday to 2.72 per cent on Wednesday. China is winning the war, one McNamara fallacy at a time. Buy
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The McNamara fallacy describes making a decision based solely on data and disregarding...