X's and O's

Some interesting tidbits from discussions with people have triggered some thoughts on my part.
These discussions were centered around sports, hence the "X's and O's" title; has nothing to do with smooching...
As a "stat geek" I've generally rated things based on the numbers.  "This team is good because they hit .280 collectively."  Or, "this product performs well because it's always near the specification target."
What I'm discovering statistics to be missing, however, is the human factor in all this.
Like, just because "this product" performs well in a controlled environment does not always mean it will perform well in an uncontrolled one.
If a baseball team collectively hits .280, they do hit pretty well, but does that mean they're winners?  The stat geek in me would want to seek out additional stats to try and predict this, but without actually watching them play, we don't know if they're going to be winners or not.

The point is, life doesn't always go to plan.  Stats can't always predict outcomes.  The human brain has sophistication the modern computer will never have, and vice versa.  The problem is, we're really starting to ignore this brain of ours.
Can stats predict the cohesiveness of a baseball team?  No.
Can stats predict locker room chemistry of a football team?  Of course not!  Look at the numbers T.O. put up over his career.  The most important one, number of super bowl rings, is zero.  I bet he'd trade all of those TD catches for just one piece of bling that says he won the big one.
Compared to a silicone microchip, our brain seems even more powerful.  If you take a 2GHz dual core processor, you're essentially moving zeros and ones through the each circuit at a rate of one billion units per second.  Circuits in the human brain can only move thousands of bits of data per second (however, the human brain probably doesn't work with binary code, this "code" is yet undetermined).  Chincy, right?  Wrong.  There are billions of circuits in the brain that work like this in harmonious synchronization.  That means that billions of connections are moving thousands of bits per second, all at the same time!  A thousand billion is a trillion.  Even the most powerful computer chips can't match that kind of power...
A brain can recognize a face by the time you snap your fingers.  A computer?  It may not be able to do it at all, and if it can, it's only an estimate based on imaging techniques that are very complicated programs to write and maintain.
A computer can "do math" much faster than a human can.  But, humans have to teach it how.  Additionally, computers can't recognize a screwy result very fast, but a human can!

So, my message today is to never forget your natural intuition and don't ignore your instincts.  They served our ancestors well, whom we are all descended from, that lived in a very difficult and harsh environment that you or I can only imagine.
Computers are a tool, nothing more.  The human element is more important.  Don't forget to realize your potential and don't put too much stock in computer generated statistics and other tools.

This has been a random rumbling from a grumbling fool.