This is hard because as Manski notes, ‘the public, impatient for solutions to its pressing concerns, rewards those who offer simple analyses leading to unequivocal policy recommendations’. Should we be giving the people what they want? Can they handle the truth? Or in this case, can they handle the fact that we don’t really know the whole truth?
To channel Mulder and Scully, the truth is out there, but its whereabouts are unknown. We are always making decisions under uncertainty. Uncertainty is unavoidable. Sometimes the uncertainty isn’t that important and we can ignore it. But a lot of the time, it is important and we can’t ignore it. So what do we do? We estimate.