#57 The Credibility Crisis in Data Science

This week, Hugo will be speaking with Skipper Seabold about the current and looming credibility crisis in data science. Skipper is Director of Data Science at Civis Analytics, a data science technology and solutions company, and also the creator of the statsmodels package for statistical modeling and computing in python. Skipper is also a data scientist with a beard bigger than Hugo's.

They’re going to be talking about how data science is facing a credibility crisis that is manifesting itself in different ways in different industries, how and why expectations aren’t met and many stakeholders are disillusioned. You’ll see that if the crisis isn’t prevented, the data science labor market may cease to be a seller’s market and we’ll have big missed opportunities. But this isn’t an episode of Black Mirror so they’ll also discuss how to avoid the crisis, taking detours through the role of randomized control trials in data science, the rise of methods borrowed from econometrics and how to set realistic expectations around what data science can and can’t do.LINKS FROM THE SHOW

DATAFRAMED GUEST SUGGESTIONS

• DataFramed Guest Suggestions (who do you want to hear on DataFramed?)

FROM THE INTERVIEW

• Skipper on Twitter
• Skipper on Github
• What's the Science in Data Science? (Video by Skipper Seabold)
• The Credibility Revolution in Empirical Economics: How Better Research Design Is Taking the Con out of Econometrics (By Joshua D. Angrist & Jörn-Steffen Pischke, American Economic Association)
• Project Management for the Unofficial Project Manager: A FranklinCovey Title (By Kory Kogon)
• Courtyard by Marriott Designing a Hotel Facility with Consumer-Based Marketing Models (Jerry Wind et al., The Institute of Management Sciences)
• Statsmodels's Documentation

FROM THE SEGMENTS

Guidelines for A/B Testing (with Emily Robinson ~15:48 & ~35:20)

• Guidelines for A/B Testing (By Emily Robinson)
• 10 Guidelines for A/B Testing Slides (By Emily Robinson)

Original music and sounds by The Sticks.