Everybody Lies

I really enjoyed reading this book, which as breezy and surprisingly funny. But now that I've finished with it, I can almost feel it fading from my memory. There are a few keys points and interesting factoids that will no doubt stick with me. But overall, this book was pretty superficial in it's survey of the state of Big Data Analysis and where it's going in the future.

I guess my issue is that this book didn't really tell me anything I didn't already know or suspect. Access to massive data sets is giving us unparalleled insights into human behavior. But we're still learning how to wrangle those data sets. Some insights confirm our long-held suspicions. Others run counter to our intuitions. And while there are hypotheses to explain those results, they have yet to be thoroughly tested. Still more insights will surely be overturned soon, as we become better at understanding what all this data is telling us.

In his conclusion, Stephens-Davidowitz points out that the book that set him on his career path - Freakonomics - is already considered hopelessly outdated. I've no doubt that this book will meet that same fate.

On the other hand, some of that is just a consequence of this being a new and barely-understood field. It doesn't mean that the insights presented in this book are without value. Just that they're new and untested. There are definitely some interesting findings, regardless of what the explanation for them ultimately is. And they hint at more answers than we can even imagine. I've been saying for years that psychology and sociology are on the brink of a golden age, with all this data that's suddenly available to them. It's nice to get some confirmation of the point of view.

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