I agree that laying out your thinking at least forces you to specifically elucidate your values. That way people can criticise the precise assumptions they disagree with, and you can’t easily back out of them. I don’t think the “lying with statistics” saying applies in its original meaning because really this is entirely about subjective terminal values. “Because I like it this way” is essentially what it boils down to no matter how you slice it.
I agree that laying out your thinking at least forces you to specifically elucidate your values. That way people can criticise the precise assumptions they disagree with, and you can’t easily back out of them. I don’t think the “lying with statistics” saying applies in its original meaning because really this is entirely about subjective terminal values. “Because I like it this way” is essentially what it boils down to no matter how you slice it.