Sat.Oct 17, 2015 - Fri.Oct 23, 2015

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Miscommunicating science: Simplistic models, nutritionism, and the art of storytelling

Data Science and Beyond

I recently finished reading the book In Defense of Food: An Eater’s Manifesto by Michael Pollan. The book criticises nutritionism – the idea that one should eat according to the sum of measured nutrients while ignoring the food that contains these nutrients. The key argument of the book is that since the knowledge derived using food science is still very limited, completely relying on the partial findings and tools provided by this science is likely to lead to health issues.

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Data scientist as scientist

The Unofficial Google Data Science Blog

by NIALL CARDIN, OMKAR MURALIDHARAN, and AMIR NAJMI When working with complex systems or phenomena, the data scientist must often operate with incomplete and provisional understanding, even as she works to advance the state of knowledge. This is very much what scientists do. Our post describes how we arrived at recent changes to design principles for the Google search page, and thus highlights aspects of a data scientist’s role which involve practicing the scientific method.