Introduction

Abstract

A 2012 article in the Harvard Business Review named data scientist the “sexiest job of the 21st century.” Governments and businesses are scrambling to hire data scientists, and workers are clamoring to become data scientists, or at least label themselves as such. Many colleges and universities now offer data science degrees, but their curricula differ wildly. Many businesses have data science divisions, but few restrictions on what they do. Many people say they are data scientists, but may have simply taken some online programming courses and don’t know what they don’t know. The result is that the analyses produced by data scientists are sometimes spectacular and, other times, disastrous. In a rush to learn the technical skills, the crucial principles of data science are often neglected....