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ALLSTAT  February 2014

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Subject:

Re: Big data misused to justify vaccination

From:

Mark Elliot <[log in to unmask]>

Reply-To:

Mark Elliot <[log in to unmask]>

Date:

Mon, 3 Feb 2014 08:52:24 +0000

Content-Type:

text/plain

Parts/Attachments:

Parts/Attachments

text/plain (1 lines)

I have been saying for some time that the term "Big Data" is a really bad one; at best it is lazy terminology, at worst it is downright misleading. It fails to adequately capture the thing that it is supposed to be describing. The term has gained currency precisely because of its sound bite value and captures imagination. It was designed for headlines and surprise surprise it is now being used for such.



There is a simple solution we should stop using the term and say what we actually mean. That will be different things in different in different contexts: "real time linked data", "1.43 exobyte dataset", "Data stream", "The Data Environment" and so on. These terms are not as media friendly but they are also not as open to misuse.



Alternatively carry on using "Big Data" and accept the fact that it is also going to be misused by others who have goals other than the dissemination of good science. 



Mark 



Mark Elliot

School of Social Sciences

University of Manchester

M13 9PL

t: +44-161-275-4257

f: +44-161-275-4722



-----Original Message-----

From: A UK-based worldwide e-mail broadcast system mailing list [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Steve Messenger

Sent: 03 February 2014 08:19

To: [log in to unmask]

Subject: Re: Big data misused to justify vaccination



Unfortunately this is not an isolated case. I have noticed similar things in marketing. The phrase has been widely hijacked by people using it to assign significance to otherwise small sets of data.



Social media is a case in point.



Often the volume of comments about a brand or topic will be a few a hundred or sometimes less. Even if it is a few thousand this is not always 'big' in a data volume context.



Sent from my iPhone



On 3 Feb 2014, at 05:47, Vincent Granville <[log in to unmask]> wrote:



The following article published in Forbes on January 23, Big Data Crushes Anti-Vaccination Movement, illustrates why data should be processed and interpreted by data experts, not by journalists or professionals lacking analytic judgment or experience. First this is not big data, but small, summarized data. Using big data in the title makes big data practitioners (the real ones) look bad - as the public will eventually associate the keyword "big data" with "analytic incompetence".



But there is even something far worse about this article: the fact that they used one data set, and that they are missing the big picture, which is found in other data sets, or even by using  intuition and good judgement. While there is no direct causal relationship between vaccination and autism, there are indirect causal relationship between vaccination and a number of medical conditions, possibly including autism and peanut allergies. 



Read our article at http://bit.ly/MQgVDc



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