Is Data Science science?

Abstract

I came into data science from the industrial side. Having worked with data analysis and mathematical modeling for several years, I gradually realized that there was an emerging industrial discipline called Data Science that claimed to be the future of almost everything that had anything to do with data, and especially in so called Big Data and the Internet of Things. Data Science was conducted by Data Scientists, science-tech wizards that mastered mathematics, statistics and programming, with deep insights in the problem domains wherein they worked—they sounded indeed like true rainbow unicorns. And when I saw that Harvard Business Review already in 2012 had declared “Data Scientist” to be “The Sexiest Job Of the 21st Century” [3], I wanted to become one too.