The answers depend, in part, on data.
Human beings ask lots of questions and sometimes, particularly in the sciences, facts help.
Data analysis is a body of methods that help to describe facts, detect patterns, develop explanations, and test hypotheses. It is used in all of the sciences. It is used in business, in administration, and in policy. Data analysis finds averages, like the average income or the average temperature, and it finds differences like the difference in income from group to group or the differences in average temperature from year to year. Fundamentally, the numerical answers provided by data analysis are that simple.