My takeaway from this is that the goal of data analysis is, above all, insight. This insight could come from eyeballing the data or visualizing it the right wa

My takeaway from this is that the goal of data analysis is, above all, insight. This insight could come from eyeballing the data or visualizing it the right way, or it could come from applying sophisticated mathematical techniques. Sometimes it's very useful to notice that a particular mathematical technique might naturally apply, but you have to be careful that it is well justified with regard to getting the right insight, and not just pattern matching a technique/problem pair that you've seen before.