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Others argue that data science is distinct from statistics because it focuses on problems and techniques unique to digital data. Many statisticians, including Nate Silver, have argued that data science is not a new field, but rather another name for statistics. In 2015, the American Statistical Association identified database management, statistics and machine learning, and distributed and parallel systems as the three emerging foundational professional communities. Statistician Nathan Yau, drawing on Ben Fry, also links data science to human–computer interaction: users should be able to intuitively control and explore data.
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As such, it incorporates skills from computer science, statistics, information science, mathematics, data visualization, information visualization, data sonification, data integration, graphic design, complex systems, communication and business. The field encompasses preparing data for analysis, formulating data science problems, analyzing data, developing data-driven solutions, and presenting findings to inform high-level decisions in a broad range of application domains. Foundations ĭata science is an interdisciplinary field focused on extracting knowledge from typically large data sets and applying the knowledge and insights from that data to solve problems in a wide range of application domains. Ī data scientist is the professional who creates programming code and combines it with statistical knowledge to create insights from data. Turing Award winner Jim Gray imagined data science as a "fourth paradigm" of science ( empirical, theoretical, computational, and now data-driven) and asserted that "everything about science is changing because of the impact of information technology" and the data deluge. However, data science is different from computer science and information science. It uses techniques and theories drawn from many fields within the context of mathematics, statistics, computer science, information science, and domain knowledge. ĭata science is a "concept to unify statistics, data analysis, informatics, and their related methods" in order to "understand and analyse actual phenomena" with data. Data science is multifaceted and can be described as a science, a research paradigm, a research method, a discipline, a workflow, and a profession.
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ĭata science also integrates domain knowledge from the underlying application domain (e.g., natural sciences, information technology, and medicine). The existence of Comet NEOWISE (here depicted as a series of red dots) was discovered by analyzing astronomical survey data acquired by a space telescope, the Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer.ĭata science is an interdisciplinary academic field that uses statistics, scientific computing, scientific methods, processes, algorithms and systems to extract or extrapolate knowledge and insights from noisy, structured, and unstructured data.
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