What is Data Science? 24 Fundamental Articles Answering This Question

Many people new to data science might believe that this field is just about R, Python, Hadoop, SQL, and traditional machine learning techniques or statistical modeling. Below you will find fundamental articles that show how modern, broad and deep the field is. Some data scientists are actually doing none of the above. In my case, I don't even code, but instead, I make various applications talk to each other, in a machine-to-machine communication framework. It is true though that most data scientists use R, Python and Hadoop-related systems. 

The article on deep data science (see below) shows that data science is also about automating the tasks that many people (calling themselves data scientists) do routinely. And it can be done using very little mathematical / traditional statistical science. I like to put it this way: data science is about automating data science, and much of what I do consists of designing systems that automate what I do.

Many of these articles below are a few years old, but their content is even more relevant today than ever before. These articles should help the beginner have a better idea about what data science is. Some are technical, but most can be understood by the layman.

24 Articles About Core Data Science

• Data Science Compared to 16 Analytic Disciplines
• 10 types of data scientists
• 40 Techniques Used by Data Scientists 
• 50 Questions to Test True Data Science Knowledge -- also read this article
• 24 Uses of Statistical Modeling
• 21 data science systems used by Amazon to operate its business
• 10 Modern Statistical Concepts Discovered by Data Scientists
• 8 Deep Data Science Articles
• 22 tips for better data science
• How to detect spurious correlations, and how to find the real ones
• High versus low-level data science
• The of curse of big data 
• 4 Easy Steps to Structure Highly Unstructured Big Data 
• Fast Feature Selection with New Definition of Predictive Power
• Fast clustering algorithms for massive datasets
• Building blocks of data science
• Life Cycle of Data Science Projects
• Data Scientist Shares his Growth Hacking Secrets
• Hitchhiker's Guide to Data Science, Machine Learning, R, Python
• Data Scientist vs Statistician
• Data Scientist versus Data Engineer
• Data Scientist versus Business Analyst
• Data Scientist versus Data Architect
• Vertical vs. Horizontal Data Scientist