Cargo cult data science

Re:Cargo cult data science by gaius on Thursday August 03, 2017 @11:40AM (#14920509)

It's quite a famous quote, I think it was the chief data scientist at LinkedIn who coined it originally.

There is real value in being a "statistical programmer" but that value can't presently be seen past the smoke and mirrors.

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Re:Cargo cult data science by gipp on Thursday August 03, 2017 @11:49AM (#14920588)

I think you're thinking of Josh Wills, Cloudera at the time, now Slack:

https://twitter.com/josh_wills/status/198093512149958656?lan...

> Data Scientist (n.): Person who is better at statistics than any software engineer and better at software engineering than any statistician.

A lot less braggadocious than what you're suggesting, it's just talking about it as a jack-of-all-trades type of job.

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Re:Cargo cult data science by gaius on Thursday August 03, 2017 @11:54AM (#14920640)

"Average" would have been more realistic, and as I say there is value in the role. If DS keeps promising and failing to deliver miracles, it will never be more than a fad. Someone with a job title of "applied mathematician" already does was DS claims to do... the title of "statistical programmer" or "statistical engineer" is a better one, than "data scientist".

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Re:Cargo cult data science by gipp on Thursday August 03, 2017 @12:36PM (#14921076)

Yeah, I agree completely, I just don't think that the hype of the role is coming from practitioners.

I know this isn't really your point, but I've met Josh Wills, for example, and listened to many of his talks. I don't think I've met a more realistic guy (among actual practitioners) when it comes to the expectations and reality of doing corporate data science. The hype, I'd say, is just an emergent phenomenon of the tech reporting cycle. Nobody's out there _trying_ to inflate expectations, except a few consultants and "thought leaders" maybe.

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