Get better.

Unless someone like you cares a whole awful lot, nothing is going to get better. It’s not.

~~Theodor Seuss Geisel

Dr. Seuss is a life-time favorite of mine. If he were still alive (unfortunately, he died in 1991), he would still be speaking out (however subtly) and making a difference (he was born in 1904). He opposed discrimination and isolationism and cartooned those issues between 1941-1943.

His comment above reminded me about why I’m an evaluator. I do care. A lot.

Yes, I like to solve puzzles.  I like to figure things out. Yes, I really like to make life better.

I use science. And scientific principles. And data. To get answers.

So I have to wonder, how can anyone go through this life without that support? (You know, the support of science and answers provided by data.)

Statistics

Yes, I know…statistics lie (this saying “statistics lie” is often attributed to Mark Twain) and liars use statistics, depending on what the statistic is representing and who is using it. Or figures don’t lie; liars do figure may be more accurate (used by Carroll D. Wright ). (Oh and while I’m talking about statistics, Hans Rosling  died in February [2017]; a major loss.)

There is a lot of press about “big data” these days. And artificial intelligence. Is this the future?  Given that I hear what sound like competing stories about the future I can only wonder.

Even though I care. A lot. Perhaps as one source said, “…is it just a bit of social theatre we perform to make ourselves feel virtuous, useful, and in the right?” Maybe I’m just feeling virtuous and useful.

Maybe I only think I can change the world.

Gloria Anzaldua , an American scholar of  Chicana cultural theory who died in 2004, is quoted as saying, “I change myself; I change the world.”

So because I care (Seuss) and I am changing myself (Anzaldua), perhaps life will get better. Perhaps.

I will stick around and find out. And remember.