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" + $('div[id="ref-' + ref + '"]').html() + ""; }).join("\n"); window.tippy(this, { allowHTML: true, content: refHtml, maxWidth: 500, interactive: true, interactiveBorder: 10, theme: 'light-border', placement: 'bottom-start' }); }); // fix footnotes in tables (#411) // replacing broken distill.pub feature $('table d-footnote').each(function() { // we replace internal showAtNode methode which is triggered when hovering a footnote this.hoverBox.showAtNode = function(node) { // ported from https://github.com/distillpub/template/pull/105/files calcOffset = function(elem) { let x = elem.offsetLeft; let y = elem.offsetTop; // Traverse upwards until an `absolute` element is found or `elem` // becomes null. while (elem = elem.offsetParent && elem.style.position != 'absolute') { x += elem.offsetLeft; y += elem.offsetTop; } return { left: x, top: y }; } // https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/API/HTMLElement/offsetTop const bbox = node.getBoundingClientRect(); const offset = calcOffset(node); this.show([offset.left + bbox.width, offset.top + bbox.height]); } }) // clear polling timer clearInterval(tid); // show body now that everything is ready on_load_complete(); } var tid = setInterval(distill_post_process, 50); distill_post_process(); } function init_downlevel() { init_common(); // insert hr after d-title $('.d-title').after($('

')); // check if we have authors var front_matter = JSON.parse($("#distill-front-matter").html()); var have_authors = front_matter.authors && front_matter.authors.length > 0; // manage byline/border if (!have_authors) $('.d-byline').remove(); $('.d-byline').after($('
')); $('.d-byline a').remove(); // remove toc $('.d-contents').remove(); // move appendix elements $('h1.appendix, h2.appendix').each(function(i, val) { $(this).changeElementType('h3'); }); $('h3.appendix').each(function(i, val) { $(this).nextUntil($('h1, h2, h3')).addBack().appendTo($('.d-appendix')); }); // inject headers into references and footnotes var refs_header = $('

'); refs_header.text('References'); $('#refs').prepend(refs_header); var footnotes_header = $('

')); // trim code $('pre>code').each(function(i, val) { $(this).html($.trim($(this).html())); }); // move posts-container right before article $('.posts-container').insertBefore($('.d-article')); $('body').addClass('downlevel'); on_load_complete(); } function init_common() { // jquery plugin to change element types (function($) { $.fn.changeElementType = function(newType) { var attrs = {}; $.each(this[0].attributes, function(idx, attr) { attrs[attr.nodeName] = attr.nodeValue; }); this.replaceWith(function() { return $("<" + newType + "/>", attrs).append($(this).contents()); }); }; })(jQuery); // prevent underline for linked images $('a > img').parent().css({'border-bottom' : 'none'}); // mark non-body figures created by knitr chunks as 100% width $('.layout-chunk').each(function(i, val) { var figures = $(this).find('img, .html-widget'); // ignore leaflet img layers (#106) figures = figures.filter(':not(img[class*="leaflet"])') if ($(this).attr('data-layout') !== "l-body") { figures.css('width', '100%'); } else { figures.css('max-width', '100%'); figures.filter("[width]").each(function(i, val) { var fig = $(this); fig.css('width', fig.attr('width') + 'px'); }); } }); // auto-append index.html to post-preview links in file: protocol // and in rstudio ide preview $('.post-preview').each(function(i, val) { if (window.location.protocol === "file:") $(this).attr('href', $(this).attr('href') + "index.html"); }); // get rid of index.html references in header if (window.location.protocol !== "file:") { $('.distill-site-header a[href]').each(function(i,val) { $(this).attr('href', $(this).attr('href').replace(/^index[.]html/, "./")); }); } // add class to pandoc style tables $('tr.header').parent('thead').parent('table').addClass('pandoc-table'); $('.kable-table').children('table').addClass('pandoc-table'); // add figcaption style to table captions $('caption').parent('table').addClass("figcaption"); // initialize posts list if (window.init_posts_list) window.init_posts_list(); // implmement disqus comment link $('.disqus-comment-count').click(function() { window.headroom_prevent_pin = true; $('#disqus_thread').toggleClass('hidden'); if (!$('#disqus_thread').hasClass('hidden')) { var offset = $(this).offset(); $(window).resize(); $('html, body').animate({ scrollTop: offset.top - 35 }); } }); } document.addEventListener('DOMContentLoaded', function() { if (is_downlevel_browser()) init_downlevel(); else window.addEventListener('WebComponentsReady', init_distill); });

Data Scientist vs. Statistician

Admin
2011-11-22

There’s in interesting discussion over at reddit on the difference between a data scientist and a statistician. My crude summary of the discussion seems to be that by and large they are the same but the phrase “data scientist” is just the hip new name for statistician that will probably sound stupid 5 years from now.

My question is why isn’t “statistician” hip? The comments don’t seem to address that much (although a few go in that direction). There a few interesting comments about computing. For example from ByteMining:

Statisticians typically don’t care about performance or coding style as long as it gets a result. A loop within a loop within a loop is all the same as an O(1) lookup.

Another more down-to-earth comment comes from marshallp:

There is a real distinction between data scientist and statistician

  • the statistician spent years banging his/her head against blackboards full of math notation to get a modestly paid job

  • the data scientist gets s—loads of cash after having learnt a scripting language and an api

More people should be encouraged into data science and not pointless years of stats classes

Not sure I fully agree but I see where he’s coming from!

[Note: See also our post on how determine whether you are a data scientist.]