"So economics calls itself the science of the efficient allocation of resources. It tells itself that we help answer the question of what to produce, when to produce, and for whom to produce… but there's nothing in economics that says we shouldn't collect more tax and have a health system that's as good as the Nordic countries. There's nothing in economics that says that we should cut taxes for high income earners and spend less on aged care. These are choices."

"It's actually interesting to observe the things people are trying to do with data as a way of assessing our civilisational maturity."

"The pandemic has shown us that we can act quickly and dramatically for other people, with a positive outcome. We saw a problem, we thought 'oh no, we have to do something about this problem, let's change the way we behave'… that's what we need for climate change."

It's this really tense balance between the side that treats data as if it's almost reality itself, it's so accurate and precise, and empirical, that it's almost like you're holding the real world in your hand… on the other hand you have the overly sceptical side which is basically someone who has been burnt in the past, like they looked at the background and history of some data and found it was full of caveats. I wish everybody knew about the constantly evolving and shifting tension between those two extremes.

Mel is a data advocate, designer, storyteller, maker and founder of Nook Studios. This episode is a fascinating look at the case for Open Data, Government Transparency, and accessible Data Story Telling. “I think there’s a lot of work to be done and there’s a lot more impetus now, because the public have that awareness… Continue reading Mel Flanagan on Open Data and Data Storytelling

“I love that the thing that I work on is actually so consequential to better decision making, to solving real world problems. To understanding and evaluating forces in our world. I just love that I’m part of a way of making a difference that has applications in so many settings.” “How do we start to… Continue reading Ellen Broad talks Cybernetics, Data Science, and Life.

A fascinating conversation with Government Statistician Dr Owen Churches. How government data collection can shape policy and change our understanding of the world.

"It's worth spending time thinking about the problems, and struggling with them a little bit. The closer you get to the data, the less clear things should be."

Alan Duffy talks Data Literacy and Astronomy. "We are so keen to get into problem solving mode and we don't spend enough considered time checking and cleaning the data, because that's not as much fun as training a machine learning algorithm and seeing what it comes out with. "

An amazing conversation with Juliette O'Brien, founder and maintainer of covid19data.com.au - one of the most important sources of Australian Covid19 data and graphs since the very beginning of the pandemic.

Make Me Data Literate kicks off with an interview with Professor Adrian Esterman, Epidemiologist and Biostatistician. One of the big problems with experts, whether economic experts or any other sort of science expert, is that they have a lot of trouble bringing their conversation down to the level of the general public. It's not their fault, it's what they're taught.