Worse, it [data obsession] deprives us of truly meaningful insights that are available via philosophy, intuition, and stories, but not yet fully explicable through quantitative systems.
This is why the lack of scientific evidence is never sufficient to discredit a fact. If there are no scientific studies about something, it's OK to rely on intuition and stories, and act upon them, until sufficient data is gathered for scientific inquiry.
>If there are no scientific studies about something, it's OK to rely on intuition and stories
This really depends on what the stakes are, and it doesn't tell us much about whose intuition or whose stories to believe. For example, I'd be pretty annoyed if I were thrown in jail for writing a pornographic story if the law were to decide that there isn't sufficient data (or the data isn't convincing to them) and so they go with the intuition that it'll cause some horrific outcome if someone were to read it. Similarly, there are some pretty strong philosophical arguments against the role of intuition overall, especially in our lawmaking and moral capacities.
We can stretch it further; most people have the intuition that there are meaningful moral facts. Yet, moral nihilism is a position often taken seriously in philosophy, even if only in certain contexts. Empirical data on the matter is merely informative at best. Should we make laws on the presumption that moral nihilism is true, or that it is false?
In your example, the role of intuition becomes problematic if laws were based on it. Except that such intuition won't turn into a law unless a majority of people adopt it, which generally won't happen if it's not plausible enough. Although it could happen, and I agree with you that it could become dangereous, if reason and experts' opinions stop being highly valued by society.
> Should we make laws on the presumption that moral nihilism is true, or that it is false?
How should I interpret the "Should" in this question, as "In order to be consistent, should we make laws...", or as a moral obligation :) ?
The underlying assumptions in your question are 1) that there should be a single principle based on which we make laws, which is not necessarily true, that's why we end up with all kinds of inconsistencies, 2) that lawmakers care about philosophy when making laws, which doesn't hold for me.
I'm not well versed in philosphy, so I'm arguing here from my basic understanding of things. Laws are practical. What would be the practical consequences if laws were made on the presumption that moral nihilism is true?
Doesn't that lead to witch trials?
I'm just suggesting that, in the absence of scientific evidence, you can rely on plausible intuition and stories.
As an example, suppose you noticed that whenever you don't sleep well you are more forgetful. And suppose there were no studies, research, whatsoever linking sleep to Alzheimer's (like the one posted earlier: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24365546). Then your own experiences which could also be echoed by others, are enough to make this a hypothesis worth considering, and act upon it (=pay attention to your sleep quality) until there are rigorous scientific studies confirming (or disproving) it.