Everybody Lies

Turns out the google searchbar is the only place where we don't lie to ourselves or others. That's where we reveal our strangest fears, hidden prejudices and kinkiest wishes. Data scientist can wrangle that data to learn how racist we truly are, how sexist we raise our children and how much sex we're truly having. The book contains a lot of examples demonstrating how big data and data analysis methods now enable us to see connections and correlations where previously we were just blind guessing. It helps to pick the winning racehorse, reveals that good students have promising futures no matter which school they attend, and shows that violent movies help lower the crime rates on opening weekends.

So, all in all lots of interesting anecdotes, a lot of them on the juicy side, mixed with occasionally slightly inappropriate jokes. The book could have used a little less of the author trying to insert himself. Also, some of his analogies were just wrong (no, the grandma is not big-data).

3.5