What? Python is arguably the go-to language in data (and other) science. With a massive ecosystem of mature, powerful libraries like numpy and scipy, you immediately and freely have access to a range of features, managed almost trivially with pip/virtualenv/conda. I don't think any other language has a larger number of performant ML libraries like tensorflow and pytorch, and more importantly, if you want source from the latest ML papers on arxiv, it will almost always be implemented in python.

Then the language itself offers trivial iteration, possibly in real time with tools like jupyter, and requires substantially less bootstrapping knowledge than something like C/C++, which creates a low barrier of entry for non-programmers, who are less likely to shoot themselves in their feet with memory management and such. And if you're concerned about performance, most of the standard data science packages are just wrapped C/C++ anyway.

Sure, it's not perfect, but it's practically the lingua franca of data science right now, and it fits the role quite well.