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NPR as usual gets it wrong. She's not a data scientist. Here's a direct quote from her: “Hacking is not something I ever thought they would accuse me of beca

by JPKab 6y ago

NPR as usual gets it wrong. She's not a data scientist. Here's a direct quote from her: “Hacking is not something I ever thought they would accuse me of because I have never displayed any capability of doing that,” she said. “I’ve never taken any computer courses or anything like that. I do statistics in a software program designed basically to do all that stuff for you by clicking stuff.” A data scientist is not someone who "clicks stuff."

garciasn 6y ago
You’re making sweeping generalizations that may be false, depending on organization and its structure. In an organization as large as state government, it’s possible to have highly specialized roles with significant division of labor. In this case, she could be use SAS EG or Tableau on top of already built data sources created by engineers. Not every organization requires a full stack DS resource who is running everything soup to nuts. In fact, I’d argue if an organization requires its DS resources to manage infrastructure and write a lot of code, they’re not doing a great job leaving to the DS resources what they’re best at—-science and linking the business to the science. Leave the rest up to DEs and IT.
- rodgerd 6y ago
  There is no woman who can do anything to any high level such that someone can't show up on HN to denigrate them.
  - deleted 6y ago
    [deleted]
  - JPKab 6y ago
    I've personally mentored dozens of women in my career, and hired just as many for technical roles. The first startup I ever joined was founded by a woman, who was also the CEO. I joined when it was her and 4 other people. I'm interviewing now with an insurance-tech startup founded by a woman, who is, again, the CEO. People like you have been the death of discourse on sites like this for a long time, because you're desperate to attribute every criticism to group identity characteristics. I deeply resent this behavior, and people like you who perpetrate it. My denigration of Mrs. Jones would be identical if she were Mr. Jones, because it's fully focused on the fact that she was fired for insubordination by abusing her position as the maintainer of the dashboard to make unilateral decisions, like for example activating the CSV export functionality when one of the epidemiologists on her team was concerned that it was incomplete and was checking it against Johns Hopkins' data sources. She turned this firing into a PR stunt by falsely claiming (as it was later determined) that she was actually fired for protesting her team "hiding" covid deaths and hospitalizations. Naturally, these "hidden" deaths never materialized, because they were never there to begin with. She was proven a liar by late May, but her lies are politically convenient for the Democratic Party, and therefore she continues to be portrayed as a whistleblower by highly partisan outlets. Apparently, you've never criticized a female in your entire life, and anyone who does must automatically be motivated by misogyny. The solution to this is for men to only work with other men, because how can you work with someone if you can't constructively criticize them? That's the world that your behavior will create.
sumthinprofound 6y ago
"Data Scientist" was her job title while employed by Florida Department of Health.
AlotOfReading 6y ago
Ignoring the ridiculous attempt at gatekeeping, her Wikipedia page describes her as a "data scientist" and her own university uses the term "geospatial scientist" [1]. It also mentions she did the programming for the famous dashboard herself. Sounds like a data scientist to me. [1] https://www.syracuse.edu/stories/rebekah-jones-covid-19-dashboard/ https://www.syracuse.edu/stories/rebekah-jones-covid-19-dash...
- lawnchair_larry 6y ago
  It didn’t involve any programming. It’s just a BI dashboard.
  - groceryheist 6y ago
    Boo gatekeeping. Knowing how to learn from complex data is the key competency!
    - jkhdigital 6y ago
      What are you people talking about, “gatekeeping”? Do you personally know Ms. Jones or something? If her job title included “data scientist” then great, let’s call her that.
      - JPKab 6y ago
        She was a GIS major who got a job running drag and drop BI software for Florida state govt. She's been called a data scientist by journalists who don't know what data science is, but think it sounds cool and bolsters their narrative that the governor of Florida is a very very bad, mean man. The entire story has been a ringing example of how mainstream media outlets that were respectable 5 years ago have all turned into Buzzfeed.
- JPKab 6y ago
  She used a drag and drop tool to build the dashboard, and it's not gatekeeping, it's calling out an incredibly biased news source for trying to fluff up the credentials of their chosen hero to support their narrative. She specifically stated in the article I referenced that she "doesn't even know how to code" as a defense against the raid on her home for unauthorized access to the state of Florida's systems. Your definition of data scientist is what anyone who actually knows what they are talking about calls a data analyst. Data scientists create models for supervised and unsupervised learning for either product or research purposes. Jones is a hero of online-too-much partisans, and I'm going to take a wild guess you fall into that category.

by JPKab 6y ago

garciasn 6y ago

You’re making sweeping generalizations that may be false, depending on organization and its structure. In an organization as large as state government, it’s possible to have highly specialized roles with significant division of labor. In this case, she could be use SAS EG or Tableau on top of already built data sources created by engineers. Not every organization requires a full stack DS resource who is running everything soup to nuts. In fact, I’d argue if an organization requires its DS resources to manage infrastructure and write a lot of code, they’re not doing a great job leaving to the DS resources what they’re best at—-science and linking the business to the science. Leave the rest up to DEs and IT.

rodgerd 6y ago
There is no woman who can do anything to any high level such that someone can't show up on HN to denigrate them.
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
- JPKab 6y ago
  I've personally mentored dozens of women in my career, and hired just as many for technical roles. The first startup I ever joined was founded by a woman, who was also the CEO. I joined when it was her and 4 other people. I'm interviewing now with an insurance-tech startup founded by a woman, who is, again, the CEO. People like you have been the death of discourse on sites like this for a long time, because you're desperate to attribute every criticism to group identity characteristics. I deeply resent this behavior, and people like you who perpetrate it. My denigration of Mrs. Jones would be identical if she were Mr. Jones, because it's fully focused on the fact that she was fired for insubordination by abusing her position as the maintainer of the dashboard to make unilateral decisions, like for example activating the CSV export functionality when one of the epidemiologists on her team was concerned that it was incomplete and was checking it against Johns Hopkins' data sources. She turned this firing into a PR stunt by falsely claiming (as it was later determined) that she was actually fired for protesting her team "hiding" covid deaths and hospitalizations. Naturally, these "hidden" deaths never materialized, because they were never there to begin with. She was proven a liar by late May, but her lies are politically convenient for the Democratic Party, and therefore she continues to be portrayed as a whistleblower by highly partisan outlets. Apparently, you've never criticized a female in your entire life, and anyone who does must automatically be motivated by misogyny. The solution to this is for men to only work with other men, because how can you work with someone if you can't constructively criticize them? That's the world that your behavior will create.

sumthinprofound 6y ago

"Data Scientist" was her job title while employed by Florida Department of Health.

AlotOfReading 6y ago

Ignoring the ridiculous attempt at gatekeeping, her Wikipedia page describes her as a "data scientist" and her own university uses the term "geospatial scientist" [1]. It also mentions she did the programming for the famous dashboard herself. Sounds like a data scientist to me. [1] https://www.syracuse.edu/stories/rebekah-jones-covid-19-dashboard/ https://www.syracuse.edu/stories/rebekah-jones-covid-19-dash...

lawnchair_larry 6y ago
It didn’t involve any programming. It’s just a BI dashboard.
- groceryheist 6y ago
  Boo gatekeeping. Knowing how to learn from complex data is the key competency!
  - jkhdigital 6y ago
    What are you people talking about, “gatekeeping”? Do you personally know Ms. Jones or something? If her job title included “data scientist” then great, let’s call her that.
    - JPKab 6y ago
      She was a GIS major who got a job running drag and drop BI software for Florida state govt. She's been called a data scientist by journalists who don't know what data science is, but think it sounds cool and bolsters their narrative that the governor of Florida is a very very bad, mean man. The entire story has been a ringing example of how mainstream media outlets that were respectable 5 years ago have all turned into Buzzfeed.
JPKab 6y ago
She used a drag and drop tool to build the dashboard, and it's not gatekeeping, it's calling out an incredibly biased news source for trying to fluff up the credentials of their chosen hero to support their narrative. She specifically stated in the article I referenced that she "doesn't even know how to code" as a defense against the raid on her home for unauthorized access to the state of Florida's systems. Your definition of data scientist is what anyone who actually knows what they are talking about calls a data analyst. Data scientists create models for supervised and unsupervised learning for either product or research purposes. Jones is a hero of online-too-much partisans, and I'm going to take a wild guess you fall into that category.