20 Insightful and Witty Data Science Definition Quotes
Data Science
Data science is an expansive discipline that touches on nearly all business domains, from finance to utilities, from manufacturing to healthcare and life sciences.
Data science is one of the most popular buzzwords in the current digital world and age. However, there is a lot of confusion around the term and different people define the term in different ways.
Below are 20 humorous, insightful quotes around data science definition that will lighten your mood and make you laugh.
Data Science Definition Quotes
“The first rule of data science is: don’t ask how to define data science.”
―Josh Bloom (Azam 2014)
“On data science: It’s one of these interdisciplinary, non-disciplinary spaces where people get stuff done in interesting ways, but don’t even know what to call it themselves.”
―Cathryn Carson (Azam 2014)
“Defining data science is like defining the internet — ask 10 people and you get 10 different answers.”
―Micaela S. Parker, Arlyn E. Burgess, and Philip E. Bourne (Parker et al. 2021)
“Data science is nothing but the old wine in new bottle versions of the statistics with different fields.”
―Randy Bartlett (Bartlett 2015)
“The actual term ‘data science’ is one of those terms that mean everything and nothing at the same time.”
―Nick Adams (Azan 2014)
“Data science is all about asking interesting questions based on the data you have — or often the data you don’t have.”
―Sarah Jarvis (Darmody 2020)
“‘Data Science’ is defined as what ‘Data Scientists’ do.”
―Harlan D. Harris (Harris 2011)
“Data science is the civil engineering of data.”
―Cathy O’Neil and Rachel Schutt (O’Neil and Schutt 2013)
“Data science has the curious distinction of being one of the few fields of study that leaves the practitioner without a domain.”
―Mikhail Mew (Mew 2021)
“Data science is the science of making data useful.”
―Cassie Kozykorv (Kozykorv 2018)
“Data Science isn’t about the quantity of data, but rather the quality.”
―Joo Ann Lee (Coresignal 2021)
“The data science motto: If at first you don’t succeed; call it version 1.0.”
“Data science is a lot like cooking. Although raw ingredients may be fascinating at first, the fun doesn’t start until you’re actually able to start slicing, dicing, and eventually serving up something delicious to devour. Most of the time, you’ll end up with a dish, but in the data science world, we call it data insights.”
―Richard Cornelius Suwandi (Suwandi 2020)
“Data science is 80% preparing data, 20% complaining about preparing data.”
―Richard Cornelius Suwandi (Suwandi 2020)
“Data Science is a combination of art and science, limited only by the extent of freedom afforded the data scientist to explore coupled with their creative abilities.”
“Data science, as it’s practiced, is a blend of Red-Bull-fueled hacking and espresso-inspired statistics.”
“And data science is not merely statistics, because when statisticians finish theorizing the perfect model, few could read a tab-delimited file into R if their job depended on it.”
―Mike Driscoll (O’Neil and Schutt 2013)
“Data Science: An action plan to expand the technical areas of the field of statistics.”
―William Cleaveland (Cleaveland 2001)
“Learning data science is like going to the gym, you only benefit if you do it consistently.”
— Moez Ali (Suwandi, 2022)
“Many people think of data science as a job, but it’s more accurate to think of it as a way of thinking, a means of extracting insights through the scientific method.”
— Thilo Huellmann (Coresignal 2021)
Concluding Thoughts
Laughter is indeed the best medicine and data professional certainly needs more humour in their lives. The next time you plan to give speeches or a presentation in the data domain, it would be great if you start with some funny or quirky data quotes to perk up the interest of your colleagues and clients. Not only do they lighten the atmosphere, but they also give a piece of advice that no one would have thought so useful as they are hilarious.
I hope you enjoyed these quotes or at the least, some of these tickled you a little. Don’t forget to share any other funny data science quotes in the comments below.
In order enjoy more such quotes, get the book- Data Humour: Funny Data, Big Data, Statistics, and Data Science Quotes, Puns, and Punchlines, which has a collection of humorous data quotes related to data, big data, statistics, and data science, from different sources and a wide array of cultural figures, thought leaders and key influencers across the world..
A version of this article was published earlier on KDNuggets in February, 2022 and on Medium in October, 2022.
Thanks so much for reading! Take care!
Biography: Rupa Mahanti is a consultant, researcher, speaker, data enthusiast, and author of several books on data (data quality, data governance, and data analytics). You can connect with Rupa on LinkedIn or Research Gate (Research Gate has most of her published work, some of which can be downloaded for free).