
Data Science & The Role of the Data Scientist - nowsourcing
http://wikibon.org/blog/role-of-the-data-scientist/
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jamesbkel
The 1790 census thing aside, I think what makes this such a nice infographic
is that the creator didn't try to squeeze a bunch of numbers in there. Aside
from the the pie chart (which I actually like since it is intentionally used
to demonstrate misleading statistics) and a few other cases, it's primarily a
written description.(I wish it would provide citations, but I'm satisfied with
the accuracy of the information)

It didn't fall into the trap of trying to ornament charts by substituting icon
for point on a chart or create 3D or otherwise exotic charts that are nearly
impossible to interpret. Simply stuck to telling a story and that seems to
work.

[edit: I should add. I definitely fall into the category of "Data Scientist".
So while I have a lot of appreciation for quality visualization, I think in
this case it was best to stick with a narrative and not try to incorporate
anything quantitative into the visuals.]

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drpancake
Good infographic. Although:

"The first big data collection project in history was by the U.S. Census,
which started in 1790."

Errr....

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wiredfool
Hmm. I can push that back to the doomsday book.

And probably every single tax collector in history.

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brendano
I think tax collection records are always one of the earliest examples of
writing in a ancient language

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tomazzi
The link goes to "Database Error - Error establishing a database connection"
which is kind of interesting, given the subject of this thread.

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helwr
good summary, also see [http://www.quora.com/Educational-Resources/How-do-I-
become-a...](http://www.quora.com/Educational-Resources/How-do-I-become-a-
data-scientist) and <http://radar.oreilly.com/2010/06/what-is-data-
science.html>

