Real-Life Decision Making
Your first climatology job is as an assistant to a self-employed consultant. Your employer has a contract to provide climate reports to a company that produces winter coats.
The coat company knows that when the winter is warm, they will not sell many coats. Therefore, they purchase a type of insurance in which the insurance company pays them if the average winter climate in a region is higher than a certain temperature. If the average temperature falls below that temperature, they cannot make a claim on the insurance policy.
The coat company wants to collect on their policy. They say the winter was warm, and the insurance company should pay up. However, the insurance company disagrees with them about the winter temperature. The insurance company hired a climatologist whose report suggests that the average winter temperature was cold.
The manager of the coat company tells you that they want you to find data that would support their claim that the winter was warm.
You go to work analyzing data. Your analysis suggests that the winter was cold, and that the insurance company is correct. Then you become aware that it is possible to distort the findings. If you enter the data in a certain way, the results will be skewed and it will show that the winter was warm.
If you distort the data and say that the winter was warm, the manager of the coat company will be very pleased with you. He will give a glowing report to your employer and ask you to work for him again.
If you don't distort the data, the manager will not be pleased. You worry that you will get a bad report, or that he will go to a different climatologist next time there is work to be done.
What do you do?