The Vantage Point: May 2013

Thursday, May 30, 2013

What is Junk Science?

junk
n
Informal
a. Something meaningless, fatuous, or unbelievable
b. Nonsesense

Source: The Free Dictionary

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Wednesday, May 29, 2013

Today's Generation Gap Worse Than Ever

According to the Pew Research Center (2009), today's generation gap is very real.

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From my standpoint, the generation gap today is the worst I have seen in my entire "baby-boomer" life to date. Moreover, I am not talking about the gap between "baby-boomers" and subsequent generations. What I am talking about is the generation gap between "baby-boomers" and the "silent generation" that preceded, and that says something. I can only imagine what "generation X-er's" and "generation Y-er's" think about their elders.

Again, the generation gap in our society today may be worse than ever...

Source: Growing Old in America: Expectations vs Reality (2009, June 29) Pew Research Center.

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Monday, May 27, 2013

Memorial Day 2013

Heartfelt remembrances for lost comrades and sincere best wishes to their families and loved ones...

Well Said...

"Care about what other people think and you will always be their prisoner."

~ Lao Tzu

Lao Tzu

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Saturday, May 25, 2013

The Art of Visualization

Well Said...

"When we see a natural style, we are astonished and delighted; for we expected to see an author, and we find a man."

~ Blaise Pascal

Blaise Pascal (1623 - 1662)

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Tuesday, May 21, 2013

Well Said...

"To free us from the expectations of others, to give us back to ourselves -- there lies the great, singular power of self-respect."

~ Joan Didion

Joan Didion (1934- )

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Douglas Rushkoff: On Present Shock

John Cook: The R Programming Language for Statistics

Well Said...

"If you removed the rocks, the brook would lose its song."

~ Amish proverb

Logical Fallacies Poster

Jesse Richardson, Andy Smith, and Som Meaden (2012) have created a poster quality infographic depicting and describing the logical fallacies to be avoided in discourse. According to the poster's creators:

A logical fallacy is a flaw in reasoning. Logical fallacies are like tricks or illusions of thought, and they're often very sneakily used by politicians and the media to fool people. Don't be fooled! This website has been designed to help you identify and call out dodgy logic wherever it may raise its ugly, incoherent head.

Logical Fallacies [click image to enlarge]

The above logical fallacies poster should be hanging in every office, classroom, and home in America. Follow the link below to learn more about ordering or downloading personal copies.

Source: Richardson, J; Smith, A; & Meaden, S (2012), Thou Shall Not Commit Logical Fallacies.

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Saturday, May 18, 2013

Hide and Seek

On Philosophy, Science, and Data

According to Jim Harris (2013) of the Obsessive-Compulsive Data Quality (OCDQ) Blog:

Some might argue that philosophy only reigns in the absence of data, while science reigns in the analysis of data. Although in the era of big data there seems to be fewer areas truly absent of data, a conceptual bridge still remains between analysis and insight, the crossing of which is itself a philosophical exercise. So, an endless oscillation persists between science and philosophy, which is why science without philosophy is blind, and philosophy without science is empty. Data needs both science and philosophy.

Jim Harris

Let's face it, the historical relationship between science and philosophy has not always been friendly. Nevertheless, one cannot separate philosophy from science and still make sense of the world.

Source: Harris, J (2013, March 14), On Philosophy, Science, and Data, OCDQ Blog.

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Thursday, May 16, 2013

Jumping Through Hoops Not Learning

According to John Warner (2013) of Inside Higher Ed:

I believe a generation of No Child Left Behind-style testing has trained our students to worry almost exclusively about the “whats” rather than the “whys.” They arrive in my class oriented towards learning the rules that must be followed to jump through each successive hoop. The difficulty of flipping the switch from rules to choices seems to increase with each successive cohort.

John Warner (1970- )

I share John Warner's concerns as an educator. The question remains how to engage with this perspective of learning...

Source: Warner, J (2013, May 13), Thinking Context: School Is Not the Hunger Games, Inside Higher Ed.

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Wednesday, May 15, 2013

Statisticians versus Data Scientist

David Smith at Revolutions (2013) compares statisticians with data scientists as follows:

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The discipline of analytics is constantly evolving, or so it seems...

Source: Smith, D (2013, May 15), Statistics vs Data Science vs BI, Revolutions.

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Business Intelligence (BI) versus Data Science

David Smith at Revolutions (2013) compares business intelligence (BI) with data science as follows:

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The discipline of analytics is constantly evolving, or so it seems...

Source: Smith, D (2013, May 15), Statistics vs Data Science vs BI, Revolutions.

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Real-Time Big Data Analytics: From Deployment to Production

Opportunities Abound in Our Time...

Society is likely living through a "once in a lifetime" opportunity for those without wealth to build an estate that can weather generations. Now is the time to acquire world-class skills that earn premium wages that convert into dividend and rent-earning equities over a lifetime.

Opportunities abound in our time...

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Well Said...

"Vices are not crimes."

~ Lysander Spooner

Lysander Spooner (1808-1887)

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Saturday, May 11, 2013

What is Reality?

There is a lesson for each of us in this short film clip taken from "Cigarettes and Coffee" (2003).

So, what is reality?

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Well Said...

"In a world where everybody is a publisher, no one is an editor..."

~ Scott Pelley

Scott Cameron Pelley (1957- )

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Data Analysis Skills Are In Demand

Prof Aurelie Thiele (2013) has produced a Wordle graphic based on the job qualifications for 30 industry positions appearing in the INFORMS classified pages. The graphic below is the result.

[click to enlarge]

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Let's face it, skills matter in today's economy. And while skills such as "communication" are clearly sought, technical skills otherwise overwhelm the industry job ads. My advice to college students heading into industry is to spend your time acquiring hard analytical skills that can be converted into premium wages, and socialize out of class on your own time. Data analysis skills are in demand right now, no doubt.

Source: Thiele, A (2013, May 9), Skills Industry-Bound OR MS/PhD Grads Should Have, Engineered.

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Thursday, May 09, 2013

Quandl Has Arrived

Looking for "big data" sources? Quandl enables searches of over 5,000,000 financial, economic, and social datasets made available by data contributors worldwide. Morover, every Quandl dataset is available for direct download via Python, Stata, Excel, R, as well as embeddable as a graph on any website. According to Quandl's creators:

Quandl has indexed over 5 million time-series datasets from over 400 sources. All of Quandl's datasets are open and free. You can download any Quandl dataset in any format that you want. You can also visualize, save, share, authenticate, validate, upload, index, merge and transform data. Our long-term goal is to make all the numerical data on the internet easy to find and easy to use.

Establishing a Quandl user account is free and easy. I tested downloading Quandl datasets using the Excel add-in and R package accessories readily available for download from the Quandl website -- both worked perfectly.

Quandl has arrived...

Learn More

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Wednesday, May 08, 2013

Well Said...

"R [Project R] has become the lingua franca [i.e., working language, bridge language, vehicular language, unifying language] for statistical computing."

~ Bernhard Pfaff

Prof Bernhard Pfaff

Follow the link below to learn more about R for statistical computing.

Project R

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Well Said...

"Find what you love and let it kill you."

~ Charles Bukowski

Charles Bukowski (1920-1994)

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Tuesday, May 07, 2013

Well Said...

"If you can't solve it, it's not a problem -- it's reality."

~ Barbara Coloroso

Barbara Coloroso

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Monday, May 06, 2013

Noam Chomsky: Assessment vs Autonomy

The Cause of Americanism

Americanism is about allegiance to our nation's customs, institutions, and way of life, all of which are missions of the American Legion.

The American Legion was chartered by Congress in 1919 as a patriotic veterans organization. Focusing on service to veterans, servicemembers and communities, the Legion evolved from a group of war-weary veterans of World War I into one of the most influential nonprofit groups in the United States. Membership swiftly grew to over 1 million, and local posts sprang up across the country. Today, membership stands at over 2.4 million in 14,000 posts worldwide. The posts are organized into 55 departments: one each for the 50 states, along with the District of Columbia, Puerto Rico, France, Mexico and the Philippines.