The human bias to numbers? Do we unconsciously make the numbers fit the activity, or the activity fit the numbers?

A recent works e-mail that I had forwarded to me has given me some real (actually metaphorical) food for thought about the credence we perhaps unintentionally give to things that are represented as numbers, or in numbers. There is something about their exact and (apparently) clear nature that seems to imbue numbers with a some sort of robust certainty ... a clarity and concreteness that we all tend to project into or onto them, and their use. 

This is where my thoughts were stirred from their usual slumber (this is sadly degenerating into a series of very mixed metaphors) as the email I received contained numbers representing the clinical ‘Contact Activity' of me and my fellow staff working across our CLDTs. What struck me was the wild variation in this represented ‘activity’, with my count being disappointingly low (I had always suspected that I was either lazy, incompetent, or both; and now I and many of my colleagues have the hard edged quantitative numbers to prove it!). 

But the nub of my thoughts were this: 

Do these numbers reflect something that is actually really real i.e. real in the sense of reflecting something that actually exists in the real/concrete world (the one in which we all live, and not just the subjective world we all inhabit in our own minds) - well yes, to some degree, obviously! 

…but then I asked myself exactly what do these numbers represent or reflect? As with many quantitative recordings or measures ... can we be exactly sure what each of these numbers represent? So I then asked myself these questions: 

a. is exactly the same thing being recorded (e.g. ‘Contact Activity') by multiple recorders in each and every instance i.e. are all the recordings of precisely the same thing? ... and also, 

b. are all the instances of this precise same thing actually recorded? ... and then I asked,

c. are the recordings of these apparently exact same things being interpreted in exactly same way by the outside observers when they read these numbers and individually create their own meaning from them (i.e. that I am lazy and/or incompetent)? ... and then (stick with it, there's a chance it might be interesting), 

d. is this interpretation the same as all the multiple recorders thought the numbers meant? i.e. is what is coming out with these numbers exactly the same as what went in with these numbers? and finally: if so, or if not, how would we know? 

So my question is generally about our superficial acceptance of numbers in many aspects of work and life and what they purport to represent (which to me seems to have all the hallmarks of fitting within some sort of unconscious cognitive bias). I suppose all I am saying is that I think that sometimes numbers can sneak in some unwarranted confidence in their own actuality and meaningfulness (when shared in certain decontextualised ways).

Not that I am against numbers in many fields – they are utterly invaluable when used and reported correctly (as with many robust quantitative research studies - although please remember here that some studies tend to be somewhat reductionist in nature when they end up representing complex issues as just numbers! - they can never tell the whole story).

So, we should always be wary that we might consciously or unconsciously fall prey to our internal bias and unconsciously and unquestioningly project too much confidence into a set of sometimes quite crude numbers - they can at times confuse a picture ... by at best being quite meaningless, but at worst they might actually be misleading (I hope!).