Data science is now officially cooler than the weather when I last posted.
One of my favorite bosses has pointed out on multiple occasions how he is very open to ideas in general or ideas of change, granted they are backed by data. It’s a cool philosophy to be a part of. Who doesn’t appreciate an open-door policy? And who can’t respect the simple ask to have a little homework done before wandering in.
Using data to make decisions isn’t particularly new. Alexander the Great didn’t order esteemed general Parmerio to be killed for no reason. He did it because he had information that Parmerio was a traitor and was trying to assassinate him. That’s making decisions with data. Alexander the Great was arguably a data scientist, as early as 330 B.C.!
Was Alexander the Great’s information from a reliable source? We’ll never know. But his decision was certainly made based on data.
What’s modern about it is that we now have transactional data that collect information data as fast as I process my own simultaneous, over-analyzing, brain-neuron thoughts. Isn’t that crazy!! Target, for example, obtains a small fortune of data every hour. Amazon. Etc. They have a lot of things going on, own a lot of random things that a lot of people/businesses use and interact with and demonstrate useful behaviors on, allowing them to store those things to utilize for revenues. Amazon is truly amazing I mean Bezos was just like whoops, I own all of you now. Target is impressive because they weren’t already online and super diverse like Amazon but managed to recognize the benefit of coordinating their empire with the concept of streaming data. Don’t hate the player, hate the game!
If you’ve never really understood statistics but you have watched Ozark, Marty Byrd gives you everything you need to know about it in the third season: the law of large numbers. Individually we are unpredictable but in groups, there are patterns, and these patterns, we can leverage, just like Target and Facebook and Amazon leverage those patterns, to make an argument for or against some decision, such as whether or not we should push more ads on you in hopes that you will buy that thing you were Googling the other day. Data science!
Of course, direct revenues and profits aren’t the only things arguments are used for. If you’re Marty Byrd, you want to predict which new hire is actually an FBI agent so that a Mexican drug cartel doesn’t get pissed and come after everyone you love. If you’re a corrupt government, you may use data to make some argument for passing laws to control the masses one way or another. If you’re a bumble bee, you may use data to select which flower looks the most yummy so you can make some honey. Serve the queen.
“All models are wrong. Some are useful.”
George Edward Pelham Box
how2py 