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What Does It Mean To Be a Data Scientist?

Posted by samzenpus on from the a-day-in-the-life dept.

Nerval's Lobster writes What is a data scientist? "To be honest, I often don't tell people I am a data scientist," writes Simon Hughes, chief data scientist of the Dice Data Science Team. "It's not that I don't enjoy my job (I do!) nor that I'm not proud of what we've achieved (I am); it's just that most people don't really understand what you mean when you say you're a data scientist, or they assume it's some fancy jargon for something else." So how do Simon and his team define "data scientist"? In this blog posting, he breaks it down along several lines: solid programming skills, a scientific mindset, and the ability to use tools are just for starters. A data scientist also needs to be a polymath with strong math skills. "All good scientists are skeptics at heart; they require strong empirical evidence to be convinced about a theory," he writes. "Likewise, as a data scientist, I've learned to be suspicious of models that are too accurate, or individual variables that are too predictive." His points are good to keep in mind right now, with everybody throwing around buzzwords like "Big Data" without fully realizing what they mean.

5 of 94 comments (clear)

  1. It means you jumped on the latest bandwagon by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Just like how 10 years ago, suddenly everyone was an "Architect" and before that you were a "Developer".

    1. Re:It means you jumped on the latest bandwagon by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Insightful

      And it means you're unemployed within 5 years.

    2. Re:It means you jumped on the latest bandwagon by davester666 · · Score: 3, Insightful

      No, you jump onto the next buzzword.

      Lather. Rinse. Repeat.

      --
      Sleep your way to a whiter smile...date a dentist!
    3. Re:It means you jumped on the latest bandwagon by gweihir · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Indeed. The actual name for this is "Computer Scientist" or in some cases "Statistician". The nonsensical "Data Scientist" is just a marketing term, created solely to inflate the perceived worth of a product, that, by all credible accounts, is not very good.

      --
      Most ACs are not even worth the keystrokes to insult them. Be generically insulted by this and ignored otherwise.
  2. It means... by thegarbz · · Score: 5, Insightful

    You cant spell statistician and anyway were too embarrassed to put it on your business card.

    I think we should submit an Ask Slashdot where we ask data scientists precisely how they work in ways that they apply scientific method in their day to day life. Or does having a "scientific mind" now qualify as being a scientist.

    I have a scientific mindset, will I be a pornography scientist later tonight, am I a trolling scientist now?