Data Science For Dummies, 2nd Edition

Foreword

We live in exciting, even revolutionary times. As our daily interactions move from the physical world to the digital world, nearly every action we take generates data. Information pours from our mobile devices and our every online interaction. Sensors and machines collect, store, and process information about the environment around us. New, huge data sets are now open and publicly accessible.

This flood of information gives us the power to make more informed decisions, react more quickly to change, and better understand the world around us. However, it can be a struggle to know where to start when it comes to making sense of this data deluge. What data should one collect? What methods are there for reasoning from data? And, most importantly, how do we get the answers from the data to answer our most pressing questions about our businesses, our lives, and our world?

Data science is the key to making this flood of information useful. Simply put, data science is the art of wrangling data to predict our future behavior, uncover patterns to help prioritize or provide actionable information, or otherwise draw meaning from these vast, untapped data resources.

I often say that one of my favorite interpretations of the word “big” in Big Data is “expansive.” The data revolution is spreading to so many fields that it is now incumbent on people working in all professions to understand how to use data, just as people had to learn how to use computers in the 80’s and 90’s. This book ...