link<\/a>)<\/p>\nThis\u00a0is an obvious but fundamental limitation that we should not lose sight of! Despite the fact that we typically want to predict the future, the hard\u00a0data\u00a0all comes from the\u00a0past.<\/p>\n
One way to deal with this is to assume that\u00a0what was true in the past will still be true in the future.\u00a0For example:\u00a0“If the weather is hot today, it will likely be hot tomorrow.” Of course, the farther into the future we go, the more\u00a0likely it is that something will change. But the continuity assumption allows us to pretend that the past data also reflects the future. And in many cases, this turns out to be accurate.<\/p>\n
The other way to deal with this fundamental limitation\u00a0is to use the data to form\u00a0theories<\/em>\u00a0of correlation and causality. This is what the scientific method is all about. It allows us to generalize\u00a0from the specific<\/em> data and say “any time\u00a0this<\/em> happens, this\u00a0other<\/em> thing will happen.” For example: “this\u00a0configuration of\u00a0high\u00a0pressure systems will cause the temperature tomorrow to fall.”<\/p>\nIn the former approach, the data analyst is very interested in specifics, such as outliers and numeric\u00a0values.<\/p>\n
\n- “What is the temperature?”<\/li>\n
- “Are there any problems we need to fix?”<\/li>\n
- “Where are our best successes?”<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n
In the latter approach, the analyst is more interested in correlations, patterns,\u00a0differences and\u00a0trends.<\/p>\n
\n- “What time of year is it usually hot?”<\/li>\n
- “What causes our successes?”<\/li>\n
- “What leads to problems?”<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n
It seems likely that different data analysis tools\u00a0are optimal\u00a0for\u00a0these different types of questions.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
“Data is only available about the past.” -Clayton Christensen (link) This\u00a0is an obvious but fundamental limitation that we should not lose sight of! Despite the fact that we typically want to predict the future, the hard\u00a0data\u00a0all comes from the\u00a0past. One way to deal with this is to assume that\u00a0what was true in the past will … <\/p>\n
Continue reading “Data is only available about the past”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.robinstewart.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1387"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.robinstewart.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.robinstewart.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.robinstewart.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.robinstewart.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1387"}],"version-history":[{"count":10,"href":"https:\/\/www.robinstewart.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1387\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1397,"href":"https:\/\/www.robinstewart.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1387\/revisions\/1397"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.robinstewart.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1387"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.robinstewart.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1387"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.robinstewart.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1387"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}