I don’t think they’re actually that dumb. I think the dirty secret behind “data driven decision making” is managers don’t want data to tell them what to do, they want “data” to make even the idea of disagreeing with them look objectively wrong and stupid.

It's a bit like the the difference between "rule of law" and "rule by law" (aka legalism).

It's less "data-driven decisions", more "how to lie with statistics".