Is there an evolutionary benefit to believing in stories than in data? Maybe it helps save mental/psychological energy. Even the religions have mythological stoies. Or have we moderns changed so much that we want to believe in data than in stories?
Evolutionarily (in the jungle) there are no "data", just stories. Animals don't read reports.
Data itself is a kind of a story (the story being: "this information was collected correctly, by an impartial source, it's representative of the situation, there's no error, and their interpretation of what it means is also correct". Often this is more of a fairy tale than whatever Hans Christian Andersen wrote).
Benjamin: Yes, sir.
Mr. McGuire: Are you listening?
Benjamin: Yes, I am.
Mr. McGuire: Metadata.
