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I’m not going to take a position on who is “right” in the Elon Musk vs John Broder battle over whether or not the New York Times reporter fudged facts in his controversial review of the Tesla Model S. It seems to me that not all the facts are in, and that each man is right on some things and wrong on others. Welcome to being human, guys.

But I do think it’s important to point out in the current era of Nate Silver-induced data euphoria that not everything that parades as data-driven analysis is actually...