60 ms·
Tangential: I loved the appearance of the term, "Data Scientist". Scientists are domain experts. A biologist knows cell membranes. A chemist knows valences.
by NPMaxwell 8y ago
Tangential: I loved the appearance of the term, "Data Scientist". Scientists are domain experts. A biologist knows cell membranes. A chemist knows valences. For decades statisticians had been pitching that they were helpful without knowing the domain: appear-deliver-and-run consultants. It was wonderful to see a group embrace the importance of knowing the system that is producing the data. I regret the more recent movement of "data science" consultants who try to run models and AI without understanding the systems the data came from.
- itronitron 8y agoThe models and AI have reached self-licking-ice-cream-cone status. All of the work in that area is focused on analyzing the models rather than what is being modeled.
- sgt101 8y agoThis : totally, we don't understand data, or data bases. We've only had them for 20 years really, we don't understand the lifecycle or how value is accumulated or destroyed and we don't understand the composite behaviour or the dynamics with the users. There is a crossover : data science is often about constructing data resources from other data resources (and then advanced analysis like : count how many x) doing this rigorously and efficiently and with regard to the underlying infrastructures and other users (don't kill production) is a big trick.
- mnem 8y agoI think databases and analysis have been around a little longer than 20 years...
- sgt101 8y agoNot in their current form : we got relational systems in 1970, but data warehousing came in in the mid 90's. The use of data for multiple purposes (not just to underpin one grand application) is relatively new - as is the practice of using data for a purpose for which it was not gathered... remember all the "all the statistician can do is pronounce what has gone wrong" stuff?