If data represents people in any way, a reduction in complexity is indeed a reduction in humanity in the sense that it's an increase in aggregation and abstraction. That's not a bad thing per se; statistics, in part, is about both individual observations and the patterns that may emerge when they are are aggregated. Moreover, as the old saying goes, the map can't be the territory, just a simplified (and useful, if simplified the right way) abstraction of it.
That said, we need to keep reminding ourselves about the interplay between the individual and the aggregate, and about not confounding them. I talk a bit about this in 'How Charts Lie' and in one of the chapters of 'The Art of Insight'
Thanks Alberto.
I'd consider: “a reduction in complexity *can* be a reduction in humanity" (do you think it is always so?)
as well as "a reduction in complexity is a door for novices to enter and appreciate more complex realms."
What's your take on these observations?
If data represents people in any way, a reduction in complexity is indeed a reduction in humanity in the sense that it's an increase in aggregation and abstraction. That's not a bad thing per se; statistics, in part, is about both individual observations and the patterns that may emerge when they are are aggregated. Moreover, as the old saying goes, the map can't be the territory, just a simplified (and useful, if simplified the right way) abstraction of it.
That said, we need to keep reminding ourselves about the interplay between the individual and the aggregate, and about not confounding them. I talk a bit about this in 'How Charts Lie' and in one of the chapters of 'The Art of Insight'