I’m more than 20 years away from my last math classes. And though I spent my startup experience around some very
smart mathematical types, I didn’t learn enough at any point to actually use data in models, make models, or otherwise become one of those “big data” types you read about…well, fucking everywhere.
But I did learn a healthy dose of respect for what data, and math, when put together by the right people, are capable of. And since signing up with Sage Bionetworks, first as a Board member, and more recently as a member of the management team, I’ve learned a lot about what data can do now that processors, storage, bandwidth, and sequencing are all brutally cheap.
The key is, as per @DCDave, to reset your expectations. Cheap, plentiful data changes the epistemology of fields. It did so in baseball, which went from trusting a scout’s “gut” instinct to an intensely data driven science. It did so in weather. This year, it did so in politics.
But it’s very hard to reset your expectations when you’re at the top of a traditional industry. The punditocracy’s dismissive handwaving towards Nate Silver is all I can think of when I go to traditional events on science and health these days.