What does it take to be a data scientist?

Conway on what it takes to be a data scientist (@ ZIA, ht: Mike B).

The full article is here. It's short and sweet, and offers a nice counterpoint to some of the claims made by people with a more computer-science-centric view of the world. Turns out that modeling assumptions (i.e. math and statistics) and theory (i.e. substantive expertise) matter. You ignore them at your own risk.

PS: The title makes it sound like this is about U.S. intelligence, but almost all the points in the article apply to business and academia as well.

What examples for successful prediction do we have in social science?

A question that's been bugging me: as social scientists, what can we predict reasonably well?

Following Kuhn's definition for a scientific paradigm, I'm focusing on:
1) social phenomena
2) that we can predict with enough accuracy to be useful
3) using technical skills that require special training.

I've found surprisingly few examples that satisfy all of these criteria. Only three, in fact.

1. Aptitude testing
   Prediction: How well will a person perform in school, a given job, the Army, etc.?
   Technical skill: Psychometrics
   


2. Microeconomics
   Prediction: What effect will various market interventions have on the price, quantity supplied, etc. for a specific good?
   Technical skill: Producer, consumer, and game theory
   


3. Election polling
   Prediction: Who will win in a given election?
   Technical skills: Survey design, sampling theory
   

Can you think of any others? I've got to be missing some.

What areas *should* we be able to predict? We have all kinds of new tools as social scientists. It seems like we should be ready to tackle some new challenges.

How to do research that has an impact, and still survive

Fascinating talk by Richard Hamming, of hamming code fame: You and Your Research. It's a very long and detailed discussion of how to build a scientific career in a way that will maximize the long-term impact of your work.

And here's an interesting counterpoint from the other end of a scientific career: how to survive grad school. Some Modest Advice for Graduate Students.

Hard problems in social science

A Harvard conference on "Hard problems in social science" just wrapped up, with voting on the most important and most difficult problems. The ran the poll on facebook with 10,000 people weighing in.

Frontrunners include:

• World peace
• Sustainable population growth
• Collective decision making
• Stable institutions
  

The pdf with survey results is here. Videos of speakers are here. Very interesting stuff