The Lincoln monument has 36 pillars because at the time of Lincoln's assassination, there were 36 states in the Union.
Yes, data is reliable for predicting the future because if you think about weather forecasts they use a huge chart of data to help foresee what the weather will be for the day after, the week after, and etc. This is only one of the examples for data being reliable. Especially if it's fastdata, actionable data, and so on.