Backlash against big data

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understandinguncertainty.org was produced by the Winton programme for the public understanding of risk based in the Statistical Laboratory in the University of Cambridge. The aim was to help improve the way that uncertainty and risk are discussed in society, and show how probability and statistics can be both useful and entertaining.

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While I was listening to the Calling Bullshit in the Era of Big Data lecture series, specifically the one that discusses the Google Flu Trends overestimating the number of cases of flu, I knocked some paper on the floor. It came from a pile of papers that I had found when tidying up and handing over the archive for a volunteer role I had just given up. After the lecture had finished I picked it up. It was called 'How to preprocess a simple paragraph of text'. I have no idea what it is about, or where I got it, but it had nothing to do with my volunteer job and I had never read it before. On the last page there was a sample piece of text to try the technique out on. The text was about big data, and included the same information about Google Flu Trends overestimating the number of cases of flu that I had just heard in the lecture.
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Date submitted:Mon, 15 Oct 2018 21:08:28 +0000Coincidence ID:10119