6 mathematical logic to bear on age‐old questions of ethics and normative principles (Sen 1970; see also Suzumura 1983). This work brought into the mainstream of rigorous analysis concepts such as rights, which were widely talked about but seldom subjected to careful scrutiny (Sen 1996). This body of work has been important for the World Bank, since its mission goals have foundations in it (World Bank 2015b), and also in related country‐specific research (Subramanian and Jayaraj 2016).

It is worth digressing for a moment to note that data and statistics belong to a larger domain of inquiry, which has to do with description. Doing descriptive social science is often treated as a pejorative, which is unfortunate, since, as Amartya Sen (1980) points out in a powerful essay, good description is not easy and a huge amount of the progress of science depends on description. Description, be it in words or data, entails choice. Description is not regurgitating everything we see around us. We have to pick what is vital and make that available to others. How we describe and what we describe shapes our understanding of the world. The “describer” is therefore a pivotal agent.

It is important to be aware that description can take many forms. What the anthropologist describes often does not take the form of numbers and data. But the descriptions of what he or she has seen and, more importantly, experienced is vital for our understanding of the world. The concept of “thick description,” which we owe to Gilbert Ryle (1968) and Clifford Geertz (1973) and has been used by umpteen anthropologists, has vastly enhanced our understanding of traditional and remote societies and enabled us to intervene more effectively. At times this intervention has been for the wrong reasons, for instance, to enable colonial domination; but it has also helped to carry the development agenda further by helping extend the reach of modern medicine and education.

Historically, we have learned about the motivation and purpose of other lives, which are distant from us, through the ardor and work of anthropologists. These are very difficult to learn and comprehend with data and statistics alone. Living with the subject and acquiring an intuitive understanding is often a necessity. This knowledge has been put to good and bad uses, to help the poor living in distant lands and in traditional societies, and also to exploit people and spread imperialism and colonial control. For good or for bad, the knowledge has been useful.

The absence of such knowledge can be a big handicap. Consider terrorism. Because of the dangers associated with terrorist groups, we do not have studies of the kind anthropologists provided for remote societies. This is causing an insurmountable knowledge divide.

Finally, a word of caution. The skeptics, from Pyrrho to David Hume and Bertrand Russell, were right; neither fact nor deduction can take you all the way to the best policy to implement. The reason is that causality, whether or not it is there, can never be demonstrated. In the end, causality lies in the eyes of the beholder. For me the most thought‐provoking observation on this comes from a tribesman from Nepal. The famous National Geographic photographer, Eric Valli, seeing the high trees these tribesmen climbed to gather honey, asked one of them if they don’t