being right 51% of the time

[unpakwon]

Please help me understand the following in bold.

Emotions provide us with the extra data points that we need to make better decisions. They give us an intuitive or gut sense of what we need to do next. In a world where being right 51 percent of the time is often enough to make the difference, those extra data points may be just what it takes for us to be successful.

I interpreted "data points" as meaning just "data". Is there a big difference between data and data point?

Thank you.

[BobK]

Originally Posted by unpakwon

Please help me understand the following in bold.

Emotions provide us with the extra data points that we need to make better decisions. They give us an intuitive or gut sense of what we need to do next. In a world where being right 51 percent of the time is often enough to make the difference, those extra data points may be just what it takes for us to be successful.

I interpreted "data points" as meaning just "data". Is there a big difference between data and data point?

Thank you.

On your last point - not really. It's just management jargon. (A distinction could be made between the actual data and the way/fact of its being recorded - in MBA classes they make a big distinction between 'data' and 'information"), but I think a lot of users just don't care. 'Data points' is one of those words like "window" or "in the FY '08 time-frame" or 'in the <class of things> space" - just thrown in to business talk to make the speaker sound more important.)

'Being right 51% of the time' probably just means 'being only very slightly better than the competition'. But "51%" is a very specific number, which may in some contexts (though not, I'd guess, here) refer to the way women outnumber men.

b

[susiedqq]

Emotions provide us with the extra data points that we need to make better decisions. They give us an intuitive or gut sense of what we need to do next. In a world where being right 51 percent of the time is often enough to make the difference, those extra data points may be just what it takes for us to be successful.


I think that the word "data" is just used as an adjective for "points" and means information or influence factors when determining how to make a decision. These sentences say that when making a close decision (even when it's a close call ) emotions of intuition or gut sense can often be helpful, leading to success. "Trust your gut feeling" is another way to say this.

[unpakwon]

I see.

Thank you all for the help.