{"id":434,"date":"2022-10-21T11:08:01","date_gmt":"2022-10-21T08:08:01","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/quecst.qcri.org\/blog\/?p=434"},"modified":"2022-10-21T11:08:29","modified_gmt":"2022-10-21T08:08:29","slug":"big-data-fallacy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/acua.qcri.org\/blog\/big-data-fallacy\/","title":{"rendered":"Big Data Fallacy"},"content":{"rendered":"<figure id=\"attachment_435\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-435\" style=\"width: 796px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-435\" src=\"https:\/\/quecst.qcri.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/10\/big_data_fallacy.png\" alt=\"The Illusion of Data Validity: Why Numbers About People Are Likely Wrong\" width=\"796\" height=\"399\" srcset=\"https:\/\/acua.qcri.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/10\/big_data_fallacy.png 796w, https:\/\/acua.qcri.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/10\/big_data_fallacy-300x150.png 300w, https:\/\/acua.qcri.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/10\/big_data_fallacy-768x385.png 768w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 796px) 100vw, 796px\" \/><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-435\" class=\"wp-caption-text\"><em><a href=\"https:\/\/www.sciencedirect.com\/science\/article\/pii\/S2543925122001188?via%3Dihub\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">The Illusion of Data Validity: Why Numbers About People Are Likely Wrong<\/a><\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p style=\"box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: var(--artdeco-reset-base-border-zero); font-size: 16px; vertical-align: var(--artdeco-reset-base-vertical-align-baseline); background-color: #ffffff; --artdeco-reset-typography_getfontsize: 1.6rem; --artdeco-reset-typography_getlineheight: 1.5; line-height: var(--artdeco-reset-typography_getLineHeight); color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.9); cursor: text; counter-reset: list-1 0 list-2 0 list-3 0 list-4 0 list-5 0 list-6 0 list-7 0 list-8 0 list-9 0; font-family: -apple-system, system-ui, BlinkMacSystemFont, 'Segoe UI', Roboto, 'Helvetica Neue', 'Fira Sans', Ubuntu, Oxygen, 'Oxygen Sans', Cantarell, 'Droid Sans', 'Apple Color Emoji', 'Segoe UI Emoji', 'Segoe UI Emoji', 'Segoe UI Symbol', 'Lucida Grande', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; white-space: pre-wrap;\"><span style=\"box-sizing: inherit; margin: var(--artdeco-reset-base-margin-zero); padding: var(--artdeco-reset-base-padding-zero); border: var(--artdeco-reset-base-border-zero); font-size: var(--artdeco-reset-base-font-size-hundred-percent); vertical-align: var(--artdeco-reset-base-vertical-align-baseline); background: var(--artdeco-reset-base-background-transparent); outline: var(--artdeco-reset-base-outline-zero); font-weight: var(--artdeco-reset-typography-font-weight-bold);\"><strong>Big Data Fallacy<\/strong>.<\/span>\u00a0The law of large numbers argues that the sample&#8217;s mean approaches the sample population&#8217;s actual average as a sample size increases. This concept is often, either implicitly or explicitly, taken as a justification as to why \u2018big data\u2019 (i.e., millions or billions of samples) cannot be wrong. However, there are contrary arguments and evidence. The big data fallacy implies that more data does not translate to more information in equal measure.<\/p>\n<p style=\"box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: var(--artdeco-reset-base-border-zero); font-size: 16px; vertical-align: var(--artdeco-reset-base-vertical-align-baseline); background-color: #ffffff; --artdeco-reset-typography_getfontsize: 1.6rem; --artdeco-reset-typography_getlineheight: 1.5; line-height: var(--artdeco-reset-typography_getLineHeight); color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.9); cursor: text; counter-reset: list-1 0 list-2 0 list-3 0 list-4 0 list-5 0 list-6 0 list-7 0 list-8 0 list-9 0; font-family: -apple-system, system-ui, BlinkMacSystemFont, 'Segoe UI', Roboto, 'Helvetica Neue', 'Fira Sans', Ubuntu, Oxygen, 'Oxygen Sans', Cantarell, 'Droid Sans', 'Apple Color Emoji', 'Segoe UI Emoji', 'Segoe UI Emoji', 'Segoe UI Symbol', 'Lucida Grande', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; white-space: pre-wrap;\">The implication is that if an error occurs in a small sample of data, making the sample \u2018big\u2019 does not mystically eradicate this error.<\/p>\n<p style=\"box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: var(--artdeco-reset-base-border-zero); font-size: 16px; vertical-align: var(--artdeco-reset-base-vertical-align-baseline); background-color: #ffffff; --artdeco-reset-typography_getfontsize: 1.6rem; --artdeco-reset-typography_getlineheight: 1.5; line-height: var(--artdeco-reset-typography_getLineHeight); color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.9); cursor: text; counter-reset: list-1 0 list-2 0 list-3 0 list-4 0 list-5 0 list-6 0 list-7 0 list-8 0 list-9 0; font-family: -apple-system, system-ui, BlinkMacSystemFont, 'Segoe UI', Roboto, 'Helvetica Neue', 'Fira Sans', Ubuntu, Oxygen, 'Oxygen Sans', Cantarell, 'Droid Sans', 'Apple Color Emoji', 'Segoe UI Emoji', 'Segoe UI Emoji', 'Segoe UI Symbol', 'Lucida Grande', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; white-space: pre-wrap;\">\nJansen, B. J., Salminen, J., Jung, S.G., and Almerekhi, H. (2022)\u00a0<em><a href=\"https:\/\/www.sciencedirect.com\/science\/article\/pii\/S2543925122001188?via%3Dihub\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">The Illusion of Data Validity: Why Numbers About People Are Likely Wron<\/a>g<\/em>.\u00a0<u>Data and Information Management<\/u>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Big Data Fallacy.\u00a0The law of large numbers argues that the sample&#8217;s mean approaches the sample population&#8217;s actual average as a sample size increases. This concept is often, either implicitly or explicitly, taken as a justification as to why \u2018big data\u2019 (i.e., millions or billions of samples) cannot be wrong. However, there are contrary arguments and&hellip; <a class=\"more-link\" href=\"https:\/\/acua.qcri.org\/blog\/big-data-fallacy\/\">Continue reading <span class=\"screen-reader-text\">Big Data Fallacy<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[26,2,57],"tags":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v19.13 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Big Data Fallacy - Team Acua<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/acua.qcri.org\/blog\/big-data-fallacy\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Big Data Fallacy - Team Acua\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Big Data Fallacy.\u00a0The law of large numbers argues that the sample&#8217;s mean approaches the sample population&#8217;s actual average as a sample size increases. 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