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I'm a scientist in industry. It's remarkable how many smart people think that science can be done without data. I've heard managers ask: "Why do we need to gath

by analog31 10mo ago

I'm a scientist in industry. It's remarkable how many smart people think that science can be done without data. I've heard managers ask: "Why do we need to gather data? Can't we just model it? The customer doesn't want to see data. They just want an answer." There's also a strong belief in "statistical magic." Faced with a bad or insufficient data set, someone will say: "Let's give the data to <statistician> and have them work their magic on it." That the results actually have to be influenced by the data in some way is something that has to be explained to people. In all of my years as a scientist, I've learned that there's still no substitute for good measurements. Good data can be cheaper than analysis of bad data.

toofy 10mo ago
> It's remarkable how many smart people think that science can be done without data. It’s so important that we write these down, so when these people have forgotten why they’re not making any progress and they’re searching for answers, they’ll find what we wrote down and say “ohhh, we had too much hubris thought we were smarter than everyone else and didn’t listen to how important actually going outside is.”
- aj7 9mo ago
  And in a similar vein, you can’t learn much about investing without actually risking some capital.
scarmig 10mo ago
Data science is not fundamentally about data or science. It's about either justifying decisions that have already been made or delegating decisions to an unbiased casting of bones to let the gods decide.
DrScientist 10mo ago
I always liked the Arthur Kornberg quote, 'don't waste clean thought on a dirty enzyme' The specific problem he was facing was looking a DNA polymerases - and the problem with enzymes is they are catalytic - so a 1% impurity at the protein level might account for 100% of the activity you are measuring and wrongly ascribing to the 99% of purified protein. So much of science is trying not to fool yourself.

toofy 10mo ago

> It's remarkable how many smart people think that science can be done without data. It’s so important that we write these down, so when these people have forgotten why they’re not making any progress and they’re searching for answers, they’ll find what we wrote down and say “ohhh, we had too much hubris thought we were smarter than everyone else and didn’t listen to how important actually going outside is.”

aj7 9mo ago
And in a similar vein, you can’t learn much about investing without actually risking some capital.

scarmig 10mo ago

Data science is not fundamentally about data or science. It's about either justifying decisions that have already been made or delegating decisions to an unbiased casting of bones to let the gods decide.

DrScientist 10mo ago

I always liked the Arthur Kornberg quote, 'don't waste clean thought on a dirty enzyme' The specific problem he was facing was looking a DNA polymerases - and the problem with enzymes is they are catalytic - so a 1% impurity at the protein level might account for 100% of the activity you are measuring and wrongly ascribing to the 99% of purified protein. So much of science is trying not to fool yourself.