Errors of Judgement

The idea that data professionals should act responsibly and take some kind of oath, perhaps modeled on the short form of the Hippocratic Oath—First, do no harm—is really the motivation behind all of TDDA, and is core to how Stochastic Solutions approaches analysis. Our highest goals are to make analyses honest and accurate, to the best of our ability, and to do all we reasonably can to avoid them being used to cause harms. Different people will have different ideas about exactly what constitutes harm, but we should:

• not perform analyses that deceive or mislead; be willing to defend our analysis publicly and have our names attached to them;
• not use biased data or make biased assumptions;
• not conduct analyses that cause harm to people, or to the environment, or that undermine human rights or civil society.

We should be eager and willing to issue corrections if we discover material errors in our analyses, and to be open to having others examine our analyses critically. We should not wish or need to abandon our consciences before working on data. We should act responsibly and take responsibility.

Sustainability and Stochastic Solutions

Many of the technical perspectives that underpin TDDA and the approach to analysis also inform the way we think about sustainability. The company’s perspective on sustainability is explained here, and part of our commitment to not doing harm extends to being particularly keen to work with organizations addressing issues of sustainability.